Attitudes to sports

Anything that doesn't fit anywhere else, but that's still CH related.

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CodFlabAndMuck
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by CodFlabAndMuck »

Corbyn is Stalin lite.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by J.R. »

NO COMMENT.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by graham »

Golfer wrote: Sat Sep 22, 2018 7:49 pm I object to the STALINIST tendencies of this site to stifle debate.

It was Karim's excellence as a sports coach that enabled him to abuse. Both girls and staff were on his side as a result.

Why should I be prevented from referring to that excellence in a threat about "attitudes to sport" since he transformed those attitudes anong the girls?
Tim, there's something in the delivery that doesn't come across in short messages on forums. Or perhaps its your academic tendencies that cause you to prefer short statements of fact rather than more considered, nuanced insights. Either way, you committed the equivalence of wandering onto a site for holocaust survivors and declaring that Hitler did great things for the German automotive industry. You might be right, but you can't reasonably expect people to not be upset by such things.

Sometimes facts matter, sometimes they don't. This might be one of those cases where the latter is true. Regardless, a bit of tact would be helpful if you want to make similar insights.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by Phil »

Here are some additional memories of the eastern half of The Avenue during the late 40s and early 50s.

In swimming Reynolds (MidB?) then held the record of 13.2 sec for one length (how many yards/metres?) of the old swimming baths (located not far from the station in former cowsheds and next to the armoury and gym).

Swimming (only in the summer term) was a voluntary activity, except for ‘non-swimmers’ who had to attend classes a couple of times a week. To graduate from ‘non-swimmers’ one had to swim 5 lengths after a dive. Then one could go to house baths, a very popular (voluntary) activity (lasting 30 min?) with free activity permitted. Elsewhere someone has mentioned the subterfuges used to extend swimming time by a minute or so, in spite of the eagle eye of Sgt Usher. A few lucky houses had (still voluntary) additional house baths on summer mornings before breakfast. But these happened only if there was a housemaster who agreed to be present. He often swam too. Bathers (then used as a name for swimming costumes) were optional and used by about a quarter of swimmers. They had to be khaki for non-swimmers, red for the others unless one swam with school teams. Then they were blue. Very few never graduated from ‘non-swimmers’, perhaps about 2 or 3 a year. They were permitted to stop these classes in mid career (on the UF?) The master i/c of swimming and gym was Mr JH Edwards. He was never called a ‘coach’. But the verb was used for school team training. JHE was a pleasant chap, Cambridge BA, with a son in the school and clearly was not an intellectual. He only taught the most junior forms.

Other voluntary ‘sports’ organised by boys and not detailed so far, include asphalt cricket, asphalt hockey (played on roller skates, usually before lunch) tennis (hard courts were available in the western half of the school), fives and squash and very rare games of soccer, then never frowned upon by the authorities.

Asphalt cricket has very happy memories for me. It was played after dinner on sunny Sat evenings, using the entire asphalt. There were usually no teams and no limits on number of players. Any/every one was welcome to play (with enthusiastic participation by the skilled and unskilled alike, from juniors to members of the 1st XI) and there was a great atmosphere of joyous fun. Our bats were normal very old cricket bats (planed along each side, so about ⅔ the normal width). Normal tennis balls were bowled. We did not use dustbins, but ordinary stumps, fixed in a stand and chalked creases. It all now seems idyllic, in blatant contrast to the horrors mentioned during the last few months elsewhere in the forum. Some mighty shots were made, but with fielders everywhere and the nature of the ball that was usually the end of the batsman.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by DazedandConfused »

Well, that’s the first time I’ve been called Stalinist. It’s about phrasing and context, your original comment sounded deliberately inflammatory.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by michael scuffil »

The master i/c of swimming and gym was Mr JH Edwards. He was never called a ‘coach’. But the verb was used for school team training. JHE was a pleasant chap, Cambridge BA, with a son in the school and clearly was not an intellectual. He only taught the most junior forms.

JHE was known as 'Fish' Edwards (to do with the swimming, perhaps?). I didn't find him a 'pleasant chap', actually. And I heard one member of staff say 'He has an unfortunate manner with older boys.' (He would treat grecians like juniors.) He was a devout Christian, by all accounts (active on the Chapel Committee), and one of those people who took humility to extremes. He wore clothes which seemed designed to efface all personality, and they never quite fit properly. He clearly took Matthew 6:25 to heart: Take no thought for ... your body, what ye shall put on. Is not ... the body more than raiment? He was a Cambridge BA who never took his MA (which was a mere formality), possibly for the same reason.

He was i/c gym, PT and swimming for years. But when Neil Simms came along, he (Simms) gave a talk to monitors on the new PT syllabus, in which he as much as said that half the exercises we'd been doing were harmful. Clearly JHE didn't see it as part of his job to keep up to date with developments in his subject.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by dsmg »

Used to love playing wall ball against the toilets at the back of Thorn B. Also impromptu footy games on the asphalt between between Mid A and Thorn B. A few windows were broken. I feel very lucky in my time to have played so many different sports at CH, something which continued at uni.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by JohnAL »

I have nostalgic memories of the glorious Saturday summer evenings with asphalt cricket behind Lamb. Anyone could join in, so boys of all ages and from different houses participated without coercion. At Housey such mixed, happy goings-on were rare. Also there were usually spectators, sometimes masters.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by sejintenej »

Phil wrote: Sun Sep 23, 2018 6:20 am Here are some additional memories of the eastern half of The Avenue during the late 40s and early 50s.

In swimming Reynolds (MidB?) then held the record of 13.2 sec for one length (how many yards/metres?) of the old swimming baths (located not far from the station in former cowsheds and next to the armoury and gym).

Swimming (only in the summer term) was a voluntary activity, except for ‘non-swimmers’ who had to attend classes a couple of times a week. To graduate from ‘non-swimmers’ one had to swim 5 lengths after a dive. Then one could go to house baths, a very popular (voluntary) activity (lasting 30 min?) with free activity permitted. . A few lucky houses had (still voluntary) additional house baths on summer mornings before breakfast. But these happened only if there was a housemaster who agreed to be present. Bathers (then used as a name for swimming costumes) were optional and used by about a quarter of swimmers. They had to be khaki for non-swimmers, red for the others unless one swam with school teams. Then they were blue. Very few never graduated from ‘non-swimmers’, perhaps about 2 or 3 a year. They were permitted to stop these classes in mid career (on the UF?)
Asphalt cricket . There were usually no teams and no limits on number of players. Any/every one was welcome to play (with enthusiastic participation by the skilled and unskilled alike, from juniors to members of the 1st XI) and there was a great atmosphere of joyous fun. Our bats were normal very old cricket bats (planed along each side, so about ⅔ the normal width). Normal tennis balls were bowled. We did not use dustbins, but ordinary stumps, fixed in a stand and chalked creases.
I have edited the above to reduce volume
By 1954 swimming had changed. Unless you could do the required lengths or widths (I forget which but it was simpler than you describe) you had no trunks. If you passed the test, in school , everyone had the same colour. For trips to the seaside everyone was issued with white (transparent when wet!) trunks. In nine years I cannot ever remember House Baths. That said two CCF platoons did get an extra hour's swimming most mornings in preparation for lifesaving eams (they got 100% passes)

Asphalt cricket; I think it occurred whenever we could find the spare time. Surprisingly I cannot remember it being played on Sunday afternoons when the houses were out of bounds nor on Tuesday afternoons when voluntary occupations outside the house (radio club, fishing, scouts etc) were enforced
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by michael scuffil »

Asphalt games were expressly forbidden on Sundays. And they didn't count as a 'hobby'. Hobbies had to be accounted for.

As for swimming, nudity was no longer compulsory for non-swimmers (except maybe in the Prep, I wouldn't know) by 1955, but still optional until John Lewis was designated sole purveyor of sportswear the following year, when swimming trunks were on the compulsory list of clothing.

For all the time I was there, House Baths lasted 15 minutes, and each house had about three afternoon slots per week (though of course if you were playing cricket you couldn't go). I think 3 houses occupied each slot, and the combination of houses varied randomly. Generally things were arranged so that houses got different times on each occasion during the week. These house baths were supervised by Fish Edwards and/or the school sergeant.
Depending on housemaster, there were also house baths on Saturday evenings or before breakfast. This meant a housemaster had to be there in person. John Page was very good on this score, and also used to cram about 15 boys into his Standard Vanguard Estate so we didn't have to walk back.
On Tuesdays (Hobbies Day) the swimming baths were used mainly for crawl classes. Attending them was a recognized 'hobby'.
As far as I recall, swimming continued into the first month or so of the Michaelmas Term.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by J.R. »

michael scuffil wrote: Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:35 pm The master i/c of swimming and gym was Mr JH Edwards. He was never called a ‘coach’. But the verb was used for school team training. JHE was a pleasant chap, Cambridge BA, with a son in the school and clearly was not an intellectual. He only taught the most junior forms.

JHE was known as 'Fish' Edwards (to do with the swimming, perhaps?). I didn't find him a 'pleasant chap', actually. And I heard one member of staff say 'He has an unfortunate manner with older boys.' (He would treat grecians like juniors.) He was a devout Christian, by all accounts (active on the Chapel Committee), and one of those people who took humility to extremes. He wore clothes which seemed designed to efface all personality, and they never quite fit properly. He clearly took Matthew 6:25 to heart: Take no thought for ... your body, what ye shall put on. Is not ... the body more than raiment? He was a Cambridge BA who never took his MA (which was a mere formality), possibly for the same reason.

He was i/c gym, PT and swimming for years. But when Neil Simms came along, he (Simms) gave a talk to monitors on the new PT syllabus, in which he as much as said that half the exercises we'd been doing were harmful. Clearly JHE didn't see it as part of his job to keep up to date with developments in his subject.
Michael ! I'm getting very confused in my dotage but allowable now that I have TWO Great Granddaughters.

JHE. Edwards. The only Edwards I can recall from staff was the retired teacher and the quiet gentleman who was in charge of the library, known as Teddy. Surely not the same person you allude too ? Swimming ? Surely not.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by Mid A 15 »

J.R. wrote: Mon Sep 24, 2018 3:59 pm
michael scuffil wrote: Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:35 pm The master i/c of swimming and gym was Mr JH Edwards. He was never called a ‘coach’. But the verb was used for school team training. JHE was a pleasant chap, Cambridge BA, with a son in the school and clearly was not an intellectual. He only taught the most junior forms.

JHE was known as 'Fish' Edwards (to do with the swimming, perhaps?). I didn't find him a 'pleasant chap', actually. And I heard one member of staff say 'He has an unfortunate manner with older boys.' (He would treat grecians like juniors.) He was a devout Christian, by all accounts (active on the Chapel Committee), and one of those people who took humility to extremes. He wore clothes which seemed designed to efface all personality, and they never quite fit properly. He clearly took Matthew 6:25 to heart: Take no thought for ... your body, what ye shall put on. Is not ... the body more than raiment? He was a Cambridge BA who never took his MA (which was a mere formality), possibly for the same reason.

He was i/c gym, PT and swimming for years. But when Neil Simms came along, he (Simms) gave a talk to monitors on the new PT syllabus, in which he as much as said that half the exercises we'd been doing were harmful. Clearly JHE didn't see it as part of his job to keep up to date with developments in his subject.
Michael ! I'm getting very confused in my dotage but allowable now that I have TWO Great Granddaughters.

JHE. Edwards. The only Edwards I can recall from staff was the retired teacher and the quiet gentleman who was in charge of the library, known as Teddy. Surely not the same person you allude too ? Swimming ? Surely not.
http://www.chforum.info/php/viewtopic.p ... rds#p13476

This is the chap Michael is talking about.

A housemaster in one of the Lamb houses during my time and still looked after swimming.

Never really knew him myself other than by sight.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by Goatherd »

Also known as 'Spit Ed' I seem to remember.
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by Foureyes »

JHE was also responsible for the mid-morning PT sessions. These were run by monitors but before taking charge you had to attend a short course run by JHE who taught about the various exercise, how to mix them, and so on.
He was definitely not a housemaster in Lamb B up to my departure at Christmas 1955.
I always thought him a rather colourless character, whereas all the other people I have met involved in PE/PT/gym/etc bounce around like Zebedee in Magic Roundabout.
David :shock:
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Re: Attitudes to sports

Post by Golfer »

DazedandConfused wrote: Sun Sep 23, 2018 12:27 pm Well, that’s the first time I’ve been called Stalinist. It’s about phrasing and context, your original comment sounded deliberately inflammatory.
My original comment was that Karim had transformed girls sport at CH.
If anyone wants to contradict this, please do. I will argue with you very strongly.
That doesn't mean he didn't commit the offences for which he is spending years in prison. Or that he was a bad human being of which CH should be ashamed.
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