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Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:26 pm
by warne011
It's coming up to halloween so I was wondering whether anyone knew any ghost stories/creepy things that happened at CH?
Maybe: the Blue Nun, haunted places, ghosts?
Thanks

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 12:04 am
by Straz
I've got a vague memory that Peele A was half in one parish and half in another. Rumour had it that years ago some poor unfortunate wretch had become stuck between the two parishes when the new boundaries were drawn up and had died. Consequently his spirit was forever roaming the Peele A dormitories, looking to avenge this hideous misdeed...
It sounded a good yarn and I probably bought it at the time but I don't recall ever witnessing any lost spirits.
Up the other end of the avenue - as a junior in Leigh Hunt A - I do recall odd footsteps at night, along with creaking floorboards and a cold chill through the dorm.
I could never quite put my finger on it, but I'm sure there was something there.
Either that or it was someone in the dormitory below, banging on the ceiling with a long pole...

PS: my wife suggests this could be the ghostly sound of barrels being scraped.

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 3:09 pm
by J.R.
I don't recall any CH ghost stories as such, although there were a couple of terrible 'incidents' during my time which could well warrant a few ghosts turning up !

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 8:56 pm
by MrEd
Peele A definitely was in two parishes, two-thirds of my last study was in Itchingfield, the other bit was in (iirc) Horsham. Most stories related to the Tube and its damp and mysterious nature, and I think stories of boys who'd committed suicide or died at CH. It was more something to put the wind up squits.

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 3:26 pm
by J.R.
As I have mentioned somewhere on here before in the very distant past, one of the older 'bockers', (estate-workers), did hang himself in the tube from the over-head pipes during my time at CH, though I never ever heard of any pupil later claiming to have 'seen' or 'heard' his ghost.

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 6:49 pm
by rockfreak
I've only ever heard this term "bocker" at CH, where it seemed to refer to a rustic. Was it a wider west Sussex term? In my day Mr Barker was always known as Bocker Barker although this may simply have been an opportunity for an alliterative nickname.

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 7:07 pm
by jhopgood
Got this from the internet.

Bocker

The equivalent of a "fag" in English public school, Christ's Hospital. Simultaneously a term for the kitchen staff.

Amazing how things get distorted.

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 2:55 pm
by J.R.
I remember the term applying to all CH estate workers, be they farm workers or general repair staff.

They did all seem rather rustic to me.

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 8:28 pm
by sejintenej
J.R. wrote:I remember the term applying to all CH estate workers, be they farm workers or general repair staff.

They did all seem rather rustic to me.
I wouldn't have applied it to indoor staff, be they matrons or scullery maids. As for "fags" I forget what word we used but it was not boker

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2017 6:02 am
by Phil
It was swab (noun and verb - pronounced 'swob').

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 12:06 pm
by michael scuffil
I am curious about the parish boundary. I had always thought the whole school was in Itchingfield (accounting for the burials of staff and boys in its churchyard**) but the 1911 OS map does indeed show the boundary running through Peele A, albeit not through a study*, with most of the school being in Horsham. The modern civil parish boundary seems to run along the railway line, putting the whole school in Horsham parish.

*All the dayroom seems to be in Itchingfield.
** The Itchingfield burial register can be accessed freely online.

I think we used 'bocker' for any male rustic of a certain age, not just those employed by the estate.

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 4:47 pm
by Goatherd
In the 60's we also used it for any boys with a West Country accent: Bocker Smith, Bocker Jones etc.

Re: Ghost stories etc?

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 12:16 am
by Straz
Thanks for these posts...
So I was right! Peele A was in two parishes at one stage.
For a moment there I thought I was going off my bocker...
What a relief to discover that CH is now firmly in the Horsham parish.