Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

So which members of staff inspired you most whilst you were at CH? Or who do you remember most for what they taught you? good or bad; academic or otherwise?

i htink in my younger days Frank Mckenna seemed to get me working and hten in older days until he left it was Dr Lawrence, i remember him once saying.....CH is full of ppl trying to find space so by the time you find some its gone cos someone else got it to....kinda made me go on a gap year....

Miss Mendelssohn - my piano teacher. The loveliest lady in the world. She never forced me to play music I didn't like, didn't force me to take exams/grades and allowed me freedom of expression.

Dr Stuart. My housemaster. He never actually taught me but I always appreciated his tolerance of people, his sense of humour and the fact he clearly hadn't bought any new clothes since 1976.

Adrian Matthews I would say - possibly the best teacher I had at CH(especially enjoyed the extra english lessons he gave my class - red wine all round! ) He wasn't at CH very long though. Very decent bloke.
Bob Sillett was another one I remember well.

Mr Stilwell was a great teacher, and remains a very good friend. But I have happy memories of the music department and all its staff.

Mr Hailey was another totally excellent teacher. His enthusiasm and top personality ... not sure I ever had a better teacher after him.

I know Mr Fleming gets lots of stick from various OBs, but he was a good housemaster, and friend. The number of times he let me off, weaving my way back from the Grecians Club ahem! The Flemings were supportive and looked after you, but gave you the independence you needed at the same time. Nothing but respect and gratitude.

ditcham. despite the rumours which eventually lead to him being sacked, he was a f*cking legend. good at teaching. inspiring. nice bloke.

clive kemp - no explanation needed. see the 'kemp' thread if you never met the man.

sillett - used to pay me slave wages for doing his garden but i still respected him a lot. can't actually remember why though. big, scary and a freemason. foolish not to respect him, i suppose...

patterson/jeffers - very much of the old school. very excellent teachers.

shippen - a lot of mutual respect (and disrespect). hard to explain.

sutcliffe - not widely respected. should have been.

slater - not hugely liked by some, but in our french set of 6, he was a dude.

temple-cox - can't even remember if that was his name. taught geography for a while. good teacher. didn't shy away from teaching us the truth about the world. about the only teacher that didn't. seriously.

miss miles - she gave me a lift to glastonbury. her van broke down in brent cross, so i had to lug all my stuff to the nearest train station. nice thought though.

mr hailey - only taught me for a single period. (he was dragged out of retirement following ditcham incident). still long enough to see why he was well thought of.

pete kearsey (SSI) - anyone who shot with him will have liked him. bar none.

there are loads more that i've probably forgotten.

The Flemings, great houseparents in my final year, and both very inspired teachers.

Miss Sellers, ok she was my tutor but she was also a fantastic mate who would really go out of her way to help people

Pete Kearsey, great bloke, fantastic shooting coach and really helped inspre me to take the Royal Navy further

On that basis you would be pleased to hear that he is now the Contingent Commander of the CCF. In his hands the future of the cadets at CH will be bright. If nothing else the school will win many shooting trophies. We still await our first Olympic competitor, but I think that this may be obtainable in the medium term.

Do you still shoot?

/tangent Navy? Shoot? Isn't that what the Royal Marines are for? There's far too much gin to quaff for the RN to waste time on trivial things like that! And if you're in the Navy and you're that close to needing to have to shoot - surely something's gone terribly wrong?!?!?

As for being inspired... The three that spring to mind most are (in no particular order)

JD Shippen
C Vincent Smith (that A in Physics was just a dream otherwise)
D Noel Paton

I was fortunate to have many good teachers - but I think I learnt most academically and about real life stuff from those three.

Hendrik wrote:slater - not hugely liked by some, but in our french set of 6, he was a dude.

Mr Slater really was a legend in that set. Pretty cool to have such a small class as young as the LE! Shame they never carried on allowing German as a first language.

Anyone who was taught by him will surely remember his slides....

Haha Slater's slides rocked! God anything to skive of French!

I had so many fantastic teachers, Mr. McKeowan (cant remember how it was spelt!) was an amzing French teacher, and such a laugh at the same time-got the majority of us As too!

Mr Denison, oh how we mocked and fell asleep, but boy did he teach us well! And Mr. Kemp, what a star teacher! My mum always had a soft spot for him... bless his heart!

The Flemmings, my "parents", my teachers, my mentors! I owe them so much! I dont care what people say about them they were the most caring house parents and got me through so much, even got me throught to the leaving service! For that Im ever grateful...

And lastly Mr Stannard!! Hey sir! My tutor, who held my hand and led me through the senior years.... thanks for being there and listening to me whine, and thanks for making me stay! I owe a lot to you too...

I'm sure there are loads I haven't mentioned but these inspired me the most.. got all tearful now! hehe

Top of the pile - Dave Elliott, bandmaster.

I could go on for hours about the good times I had in the band (but this belongs on another thread) and as a founder member of the Dance Band (now the Showband, I think). A lot of us were genuinely inspired to be the very best we could, not least because we didn't want to let Dave Elliott down on the big occasions.

On the academic front, Richard 'Pinky' Palmer was a great English teacher, with a sense of humour very close to our own. Looking back, he was fresh out of university so probably only a few years older than us Grecians. He was also a massive fan of jazz, which endeared him to the musicians amongst us.

Latin - anyone remember John Trappes-Lomax? Another bloke with a sense of humour close to our own (which led to us being able to discuss the great works of Virgil, Horace etc. in our own everyday language). This led to some very colourful expressions being bandied about during class. The only time he ever got really pissed off was when a few of us tried to hide a microphone on a bookshelf to record a lesson ("a gross breach of confidence" - and he was right, of course).

Liked his ale, and was a very regular visitor to the Bax Castle.

French - Peter Farrar, who guided us through numerous novels by Mauriac, Balzac, etc. Endlessly patient, with a great love of all things French (just as well, I suppose).

Together with these, John Denison (Latin) and Louis Bardou (French) also managed to drag me to a respectable bunch of A-levels. No mean achievement, as my work was quite often of the 'little and late' variety.

Mr Kirby. Old Blue and science teacher (well, that was the theory). In fact very good at teaching about life in general though blackboard chalks would fly with near monotonous regularity.
Bred bees; the rumour was that he bred a strain that wouldn't sting and that they died out as a result. Lots about him on the official CH site.

Dr. Scott (i/c the Sicker). ? Old Blue. Had no time for medical mumbo jumbo. Had all sorts of ideas about (principally) first aid which were far far outside the books at the time (but all came in 10 or more years later).
I have a bleeding problem and after being sent out of physics one Monday morning the nurses attended to me for the next 36 hours in their inimitable manner. He arrived back Wednesday pm, asked why I wasn't following his instructions (nurses wouldn't allow me to) -bleeding stopped in 30 minutes.

Megan Rigby; SRN or whatever they called them in those days. Performed alternative medicine in the surgery (well, she was very good at getting rid of warts and the like). Not a bad dancer either
Eventually married an old blue - not me

sejintenej wrote:Megan Rigby; SRN or whatever they called them in those days. Performed alternative medicine in the surgery (well, she was very good at getting rid of warts and the like). Not a bad dancer either
Eventually married an old blue - not me

well there's a nurse there now who also does alternative medical stuff. also regarded as real 'eye-candy'.

and yes, slater did put his fist through a projector. was shortly before one of our lessons with him. he seemed a bit embarressed about losing it (and that he didn't mean to hit it so hard!) but found the whole thing hilarious iirc.