Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Remember it?

Firstly the Chapel or Big School bell was rung by someone ( ? ) at about 7:10 am and then rung again with the fire bell at 7:30 am. Now this was a job allocated to Col B as we were nearest Big School where the button for the fire bell was. Actually during my time there I was allocated that job.
Now the fire bell was used to tell people that it was time to march into the Dining Hall. So at 7:30am ....three rings of the proper bell followed by two short rings of the fire bell followed by an awesome 5-10 second blast. Remember that these bells were situated in the dorms as well.

Off course the best was when it rained and the tube was to be used because then one got 6 blasts of the bell! However at lunch 3 rings was " march with band" 6 rings " march without band" and 9 was " use the tube" Now my main question is why was I not allowed to give you lot 9 blasts when it rained at breakfast? Where did this tradition start? Please do not think that it was because I wanted to spare your eardrums....on the contrary i must admit I loved every rainy morning and how much that final burst meant to me.

Before the houses were refurbished and we had dorms, we got 30 short blasts in the morning for 7.15 am wake up! Then about 15 at 7.25am telling us to go to breakfast. On second form my bed was right under the bell, nearly had a heart attack every morning!
On deps we were allowed to ring the bell for roll call. Certain deps took liberties with the job. They would let the last ring go on forever!! By that time everyone was now in day room and covering their ears screaming for them to stop.

It was such a relief going into Grecians East where there are no bells.

I had the task of ringing the chapel bell (gong) for a while.

There was a fire alarm (old fashioned one with a hammer) that used to go off at 2am on occaision... that got you out of bed fast!

That's brought back some memories, in the good old days of Lamb B

For fire alarms at night, having to get up, put on your housey coat and wonder over to the Scout hut. Not sure where other houses wondered off to? Can anyone shed some light?

When I was there,
Coleridge B went to Dinning Hall
Col A to behind tuckshop/the fives courts
Mid to the house on either side and ditto for Thorn
And I think Peele go to the CCF hut
It was probably different before though, they like to change these things quite a lot

Maine used to have to go the scout hut I think...

Leigh Hunt A & B to prep block

Maine B to LHA

Remember taking a smoke sensor off the day room (bottom dorm) ceiling with a rugby ball and setting it off once. Used to get 3 fire engines out 2 from Horsham and the Simon Snorkel from I think Crawley. When the girls first started coincided with the new fire alarms and their were loads of false alarms, just when everybody started to get complacent within a period of about a month all the washing machines in the girls houses burst into flames and smoke.