Horsham 1954-62

Post any pictures of your time at CH, or pictures of people/places at CH now - what's changed over the past years? What's good/what's bad?

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eucsgmrc
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Horsham 1954-62

Post by eucsgmrc »

As a side effect of going through my parents' vast collection of old photos, I've found a number of pictures from their visits to me at school. Unsurprisingly, they are very ordinary photos showing very little that would be worth posting to this forum. If anybody feels like browsing them for nostalgia value, or because you might recognise a face, then you can find them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jandsw/set ... 099253537/.
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Col A 1954-62
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J.R.
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by J.R. »

Fascinating pics, John. Looking at the dates, I must have been a couple of years behind you. Your photo with Grecians buttons rings a very vague bell in the back of my mind.

The pics of Kit umpiring bought back memories as well.
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by michael scuffil »

As we were contemporaries, there is much here (and many faces) familiar to me. I liked the pics of Kirby's lab with the tree-trunk stools. On 23 (band) the blond cornet player is the ex-MP for Battersea, Martin Linton.
Th.B. 27 1955-63
eucsgmrc
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by eucsgmrc »

michael scuffil wrote:On 23 (band) the blond cornet player is the ex-MP for Battersea, Martin Linton.
Thanks for the identification. I'm quite surprised to see (from Flickr's statistics) how many people have visited these photos, so I hope I might get a few more names for faces which have escaped my memory.
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by michael scuffil »

On w08, Thornton B can be seen emerging through the cloister arch on what is presumably a Saturday dinner parade. The standard bearer is John Watts, the two people visible in the front row are Mick Sant and Graham Riches, but I must say I can't recognize the grecian. There are only about five people it could possibly be, but it doesn't really look like any of them. By a process of elimination, and comparing him with faces on a contemporary house photo, it must be Ian Coward, but it doesn't look much like him.

Mick Sant was the band's top side-drummer, but clearly he isn't in the band here. It may have been during the period he was banned from the band for taking wire brushes on parade.

Do I recognize the ColA junior housemaster, one Mr Vinen, reclining on the cricket photos?

Otherwise many faces seem very familiar, but I can't put names to them.
Th.B. 27 1955-63
eucsgmrc
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by eucsgmrc »

michael scuffil wrote:Do I recognize the ColA junior housemaster, one Mr Vinen, reclining on the cricket photos?
Yes, that's right. And thanks for the other names.

Since there has obviously been some interest in these pictures, I've added another bunch. With these pictures being on public view on Flickr, I haven't included names in the titles even when I do know the names ... but there are quite a few that I don't know, so any further identifications would be welcome.

Here's a shorter link that leads to the set: http://tinyurl.com/ch54to62
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by michael scuffil »

Yes, I do remember your good self as the very model of a modern major general, which we all thought was a tour de force.

You presumably recognize all the Coleridge A people; there's a good pic of my good friend at the time Paul F/W.

I too have forgotten the name of the staff play, though I remember the play itself. The male lead (here in the centre of the pic) was taken by an English master named Turner, who played opposite a dietician, I think.

The Royal Engineers pic (the more formal one) includes Bill Ives ("the general") second row up, far right. Martin Church, next to him. Bruce Harbert, bottom row, in the middle (now the Rev. B. H., an important person in the Catholic church.) "Tel" Veasey (clinging to the left hand pole) and Martin Linton (in front of the pole, next to him).
The officer in the other RE photo is presumably Morton Peto?

But the most atmospheric picture of all IMO is the one taken in Wakefields. That really belongs in any collection of CH mid-century.
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by jhopgood »

The RE photos with the tripod look like a practice for Field Day, where the RE's ad to construct a crossing over the Arun for "troops" coming from the other side.
The first year I was involved, it was constructed without a hitch.
The second year the river had been dredged, making a dike on one side that was almost too narrow for the base of the tripod. We got it up but whilst we were tensing the cable across the river, it toppled over, breaking the top off one of the poles. I can only remember the "accident" but not how it was resolved. Most got across the river without getting too wet.
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by michael scuffil »

Did it not collapse in the presence of the General conducting the General Inspection?
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by jhopgood »

It may well have done.
I just remember it was a Field Day, where we spent the previous night in a barn whilst others did a night march.
The next day, there were those who came by river, and others who came across country. The cable was across to an island, and those on the river had to ferry "troops" across to the island for them to use our "bridge". I think in the end, most came all the way across in the ferry.
I recall that the night marchers, who considered themselves elite, would go out on the occasional night exercises. One night they pitched camp in the dark, and the next morning got up to find themselves surrounded by fog or cloud, and a figure apparently staring at them from a short distance.
Alarmed, they threatened this figure, with guns and shouts, all to no avail.
Eventually two of them were brave enough to go over to the figure, to discover that they had been threatening a trig point!
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by eucsgmrc »

That particular bridge was not over the Arun. So far as I remember, it was built across a dry dell here http://tinyurl.com/rexsitech54-62. Falling off it would have been nasty. Perhaps that's why the exercise moved to the Arun in later years.

I guess Wakefield's must be as strong a memory for my contemporaries as it is for me. I loved the smell of roasting coffee wafting from it, and that was years before I actually drank even such feeble coffee as was current in England in those days. I can also remember my favourite among the cakes that they served - and how they had ALWAYS run out of toasted tea cakes when you asked for them. What I don't remember clearly, though, is the hotel that appears in picture v95. I vaguely recall that it was on West Street; it was a "Trust House" before Forte bought that chain; and it might have been The <some colour> Horse.
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by michael scuffil »

There was a Black Horse in West Street.

I remember the ritual lunch at the Carfax Restaurant, and the ritual tea at Wakefields, where I often had soft roes on toast, which I considered a treat, although it's a meal that seems to have gone totally out of fashion.

On w73 I was amazed to see people on the Dining Hall parapet. This is presumably a Beating the Retreat, and I must have been present. But I didn't notice at the time, and I still can't work out how they got there.
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by keibat »

I see that the irrepressible Dr Scuffil has beaten me to it with identifications of Paul F/W (tho I can't remember what the W was) and Bruce Harbert (whom I have alerted to the existence of these photos). O Coleraide wasn't my house, but I am startled (miffed) to see how few faces I recognize, given that I was at CH during precisely the years specified!
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by J.R. »

jhopgood wrote:It may well have done.
I just remember it was a Field Day, where we spent the previous night in a barn whilst others did a night march.The next day, there were those who came by river, and others who came across country. The cable was across to an island, and those on the river had to ferry "troops" across to the island for them to use our "bridge". I think in the end, most came all the way across in the ferry.
I recall that the night marchers, who considered themselves elite, would go out on the occasional night exercises. One night they pitched camp in the dark, and the next morning got up to find themselves surrounded by fog or cloud, and a figure apparently staring at them from a short distance.
Alarmed, they threatened this figure, with guns and shouts, all to no avail.
Eventually two of them were brave enough to go over to the figure, to discover that they had been threatening a trig point!

Yes - I remember that. I was part of a bren squad. RSM Cooke was in the barn with us, if memory serves, recounting his service days. Itchy straw and those dreaded red straw mites.

The following morning, the bren squad had to eventually make their way up to the car park at the top of Bury Hill.

W85.

This must be the Coleridge B/Coleridge A pancake race.

On the starting line, second from left is Nick Cox, (wearing French style beret), and in the back-ground with a mop of fair curly hair is Don McCleod, who went on to become Divisional C.I.D. Inspector at Horsham nick !

Arr - Sweet memories !
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
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Re: Horsham 1954-62

Post by michael scuffil »

Now you say so, I suppose it might be Nick Cox, in very uncharacteristically athletic pose. I think the guy in the battered trilby next to him is someone called Ashton (Col. A) and the non-combatant grecian on the right looks like Timothy Dickinson. The Coleridge matron Mrs Riches (who probably made the pancakes) can be seen behind the racers on the right.
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