Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

My eldest daughter has said that next year, when my youngest starts, she wants them to start getting the train together at leave weekend. I think she could tell from my expression that I wasn't keen, mainly with the enormous responsibility that will be heaped on her shoulders looking after an 11 year-old at the busy Victoria train station, but she said 'it'll be okay, I'll be 13 so she'll be fine' Once at Victoria they would have to get onto one more train to get home, and that leg of the journey would take about 1 hour 15 minutes, a 13/14 year-old girl and an 11/12 year-old girl together - huggermugger I am feeling your pain

lonelymom wrote:My eldest daughter has said that next year, when my youngest starts, she wants them to start getting the train together at leave weekend. I think she could tell from my expression that I wasn't keen, mainly with the enormous responsibility that will be heaped on her shoulders looking after an 11 year-old at the busy Victoria train station, but she said 'it'll be okay, I'll be 13 so she'll be fine' Once at Victoria they would have to get onto one more train to get home, and that leg of the journey would take about 1 hour 15 minutes, a 13/14 year-old girl and an 11/12 year-old girl together - huggermugger I am feeling your pain

Lonelymom-I know the trains are accompanied up to Victoria, but if they got off at Redhill they could then get a train straight through to Tonbridge and either be collected there or get train to staplehurst/marden. I have done it to CH before and too about 2hours total including waiting time. I think that would be shorter than up to Victoria-down to Victoria!

Thanks Amy, I'll look into that

Sounds like a good idea - I'm told that the change at Redhill is fairly easy - I'll let you know! I certainly didn't fancy the idea of him travelling via London and actually the reality may well have put him off... However I know your DD has travelled via London already Lonelymom so maybe that's a folorn hope. (Actually I think it was with one of the same girls that DS will travel with on Friday..)

The thing is, although at times the journey takes a chunk out of my week, I do enjoy going to pick him up. In the summer particularly we will make it into an excursion, sometimes taking the dog (well, dogs now ) along & going for a walk; stopping at antique shops for a rummage (not actally buying anything, just rummaging- how they must love us!); following a sign that has aroused our curiosity; stopping to moon over alpacas (we want one!). Even getting lost or taking a detour due to traffic can be an adventure - we once found ourselves (somewhere near Godalming I think) on a tiny road between two
huge white cliffs - it looked like it had been hewn out of the chalk. Never found it again.

I'm not even really saving money - the fare costs pretty much the same as the petrol!

huggermugger wrote: However I know your DD has travelled via London already Lonelymom so maybe that's a folorn hope. (Actually I think it was with one of the same girls that DS will travel with on Friday..)

I'm intrigued! She's only actually done the journey by train once, and that was the very first leave weekend in second form (nearly two years ago now - time flies!!!)

MaryB wrote:

huggermugger wrote:
I suspect this post will prompt tales of ridiculously long journeys by 11 year olds many years ago ...

Well actually .... we weren't allowed to travel unaccompanied until we had our BAs (black aprons, not degrees) some time in the UVth/5th form. That's not to say we didn't, but there were forms to fill in every term saying who would meet us at Liverpool St.

And of course we didn't have leave weekends - just one "Long Saturday" every term when we could go out all day with our parents and a ration of two others before Christmas and 3 between Christmas and summer when they could take us out after prep (12.15). Or on Sundays, but that was from the end of morning chapel until Evensong at 4, which seemed very short. My parents used to drive from Chichester, which took them 3 - 4 hours before the M25, and we became experts on every stately home, place of interest (even the department store in Welwyn Garden City counted amongst these) and cafe within a 20 mile radius of Hertford. Londoners used to go home on the train for the day (I remember going to Streatham with Angela once - I thought of that when I led a communion service at St Leonard's Streatham on Friday, covering for the vicar - odd where life takes you...).

I think that when I was in my last year mons were allowed one night away a term.... wow!

At the start and end of term, a small group of us travelled across London to and from Liverpool.St and Waterloo, usually by taxi; and later, in LV1, it was just me and a first former who was being met at the same Dorset station as me. My mum usually came to see me on Long
Sat. As she couldn't get to Hertford before 12 noon, we used to meet in London, as I think several others did. DR must have allowed us on the train without school staff at about 13 or 14 years of age. Or maybe she didn't know about it!

Redhill to Tonbridge is only 30mins I shall be doing it tomorrow and the prospect of changing platforms and getting right train is less likely to go wrong at Tonbridge compared to Victoria where train from Horsham come in at total opposite end of Victoria station to trains to Kent

I go home by train, and have done since...my LE? I think it might have been late on my LE. I go the south way and as long as you keep your wits about you it's no problem. You change at Barnham (if you ever do, go to the cafe on the middle platform, the home-made cakes are Bee-ah-yootiful) and then take the next train that arrives on the same platform, or the one after that for Portsmouth (the first one goes down to So'ton). As he says, there is a steadily-growing group of people doing it, so he ought to be fine.`

blondie95 wrote:Redhill to Tonbridge is only 30mins I shall be doing it tomorrow and the prospect of changing platforms and getting right train is less likely to go wrong at Tonbridge compared to Victoria where train from Horsham come in at total opposite end of Victoria station to trains to Kent

Try the Redhill to Reading journey.

The countryside you pass through is absolutely stunning.

(You could wave to our eldest daughter on the way through. She lives right alongside the line !)

J.R. wrote:

blondie95 wrote:Redhill to Tonbridge is only 30mins I shall be doing it tomorrow and the prospect of changing platforms and getting right train is less likely to go wrong at Tonbridge compared to Victoria where train from Horsham come in at total opposite end of Victoria station to trains to Kent

Try the Redhill to Reading journey.

The countryside you pass through is absolutely stunning.

Maybe I could kill two birds with one stone; drive to Redhill & get the train back to Reading.. hang on, there's something wrong with that plan...

The train changing is easy at Redhill - only 3 platforms to choose from!

Is this the time to say that Dad, when a squit, would take the train home to Clapham in full uniform...

Great Plum wrote:Is this the time to say that Dad, when a squit, would take the train home to Clapham in full uniform...

Ah, if we are going to get into Dad having to wear uniform, in my Dad's day his dad had to sign he had worn it during the holidays. The poor lad had to wear it to church in Stepney each Sunday. (Father would have been 95 last week)

Oh dear, poor chap!

There's a picture of Dad wearing his unform at my uncle's wedding (Dad was 12 at the time!)

Yet another milestone - my DS (Third Form) has announced that he wants to come home on the train next leave weekend.

So how did the Awfully Big Adventure go?

Baptism of Fire! The others he was supposed to travel with decided to travel on an earlier train & didn't tell him so I got a call saying "I'm on the train but..."

I went into full panic mode, I'm afraid and got ready to drive to Redhill. Then I calmed down a bit and discovered that you can track a train online so I did that whilst texting/calling him every so often. I know, I was being a helicopter mother & no doubt the other passengers were cursing me - but I was really worried that he'd miss a connection or not be able to find the platform etc etc. So I fed him various nuggets like "only ask someone in a uniform" and "don't get into a carriage that is really empty" and maybe a little less usefully "look for the sign saying what platform it is" and "ask a guard what platform it will be on". Of course, it's all digital now so he just looked at a screen.

He was a bit intimidated by three big lads who got onto the train later on but he just made himself very small and said nothing... wise boy.

At the end, of course he swaggered towards the car and his dish-rag of a mother, swung his bag into the back and asked why I hadn't brought the dogs. Piece of cake, really... ! Needless to say he now wants to come home on the train every leave weekend. Not sure if my nerves can take it.

Thank you for asking!