Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Hello all,

Some of you were kind enough to help me track down some information on an Old Blue who attended CH from 1922-30 as part of a research project I am undertaking.
Perhaps you can help again- I'm trying to get a taste for what life was like for boys at CH during that period from a pupil's perspective.
Is there an unofficial publication, or certain people or a certain website, where I can hear what life was like at the school from about 1920 to around the start of WW2? The downsides to living at CH as well as the upsides... what the headmaster(s) at the time were like. Traditions, pranks, noteworthy teachers and students, ridiculous rules that one could easily break, etc. What was the schools philosophy at this time- strict or a little more liberal than other schools of the time?
I believe the CH Museum have a series of Heritage publications but I imagine they're somewhat sanitized and have more a general overview?
Does an Old Blue have memoirs or diaries from the time?

Once again, any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Long before my time and I'm one of the 'older' OB's.

One of my father's cousins was married to an OB whose time straddled the start of the war. he told me that when rationing came in the food improved!

I know of two books which may be of use, but unfortunately I do not own copies. Perhaps some other readers do. They are probably available at CH, in either the Museum or Library. Or can they be obtained through your local public library, via Interlibrary Loans? The books are,

THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS, by Frank Ledwith, Robert Hale, London, 1987. (It’s the autobiography of an OB, at CH 1918-24.)

MORE THAN A BROTHER: Correspondence between Edmund Blunden and Hector Buck 1917-1967, Edited by CZ Rothkopf and B Webb, Sexton Press, London, 1996.

Could you tell us something about your research project? (If “post war blue” doesn’t know of the second book, it may interest him.)

I've not read this myself and it may be a little too recent for your project but I recall discussion in The Blue of a controversial book by Norman Longmate called The Shaping Season.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 74-1290828

I believe the period covered is partially pre World War 2 but it also covers part of World War 2.

It would be interesting to know whether the transition from Hamilton Fife to Flecker had an impact on daily life at all.