Anxious parents

[CHDad]

Well I guess a telegram would have been the quick way (I can just about remember them).

[J.R.]

Well I guess a telegram would have been the quick way (I can just about remember them).

14 and 15 year old lads, fresh out of school, on bikes delivering the telegrams.

If they were good, they eventually graduated to post-men !

Arr, the good old days !!

[englishangel]

My grandparents had a phone (Iden 330 was the number - strange the things we remember)and during work hours the school could have phoned there (Dad worked with my Grandfather), but I think my parents also gave the school the number of our next-door neighbour, who had a phone.

[kerrensimmonds]

Yes, in the good old/bad old days of the 1950's and 60's there was no such instant communication as is available now by mobile phones, texts, e mails, etc.. It had to be a very very serious matter if one was permitted to use the House Mistress' phone to communicate with one's parents (I was lucky, we did have a phone at home when I was at school, but it was for my Dad's work and was switched through to our home at evenings and weekends). I don't actually remember ever talking to my family by phone from school - but then it was over 40 years ago. How times change! I remember my amazement on an Old Blues' Day at Horsham, having presented myself in Chapel for Choir Practice at the appointed hour, needing to wait for the school members to come rushing in individually, in half housey or less - and then observing each one of them produce a mobile telephone from a pocket, turn it off (or to 'silent') and place it on the ledge in front of them. The only time that I experienced a mobile phone disturbing Old Blues' Day was when my own went off, unexpectedly.....

[CHDad]

Well only 3 more full days of school before half term and I think I am starting to get used to being the parent of a boarder ! I think my son is getting used to boarding life as well. He has had the odd "wobble" but they are minor and generally last thing in the day when he is tired. When I think about it this was exactly the same when he was at home so nothing to worry about. It will be really interesting to see how D.S feels about going back after 2 weeks at home. I have a feeling that he will be happy to go back after a good break at home, leave weekend was much harder because it was so short.

[MrsAverage]

CHdad, in our experience we have been through several 'normals' with our son. Throughout the first year he couldn't wait to get back to school after each leave - we felt quite cast aside. Then through the next 18 months he got dreadful homesickness for the first 24-48 hours back sending sad texts and a teary call or 2 - then suddenly he'd click back in again and we wouldn't hear from him again. (We of course didn't know he was OK again and worried for several days more). Then we went through a time where he'd be very very quiet the day or 2 BEFORE going back but was OK once he was there. Now we are back to square one and he rushes back.
Just because they are at boarding school they don't stop being kids/teenagers/humans and having good times, bad times, happy times, sad times. Being the parent of a boarder means you'll have the same roller coaster ride as any parent - just maybe with a few deeper dips but with many more exhilerating highs! Enjoy the ride and expect the unexpected.
Your son is lucky to have such concerned and supportive parents.

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

I believe that we "Geriatric" Old Blues, have no idea of the "Fashions" and "Customs" of the modern CH

Things have CHANGED since our day --- mostly for the better (Don't get us started on "Full Fees !") and I am surethat contact with the Parents, can only be a good thing. It used to be a closed society --- no trips to Horsham -- no child visitors--- (Threats of "Plague !") Corporal Punishment also by Monitors --ouch !

I remember it all with affection and a certain amount of Rose Tinted Memory ---- it WAS tough, but in the 40s--- so it was for everyone !!

[sejintenej]

My grandparents had a phone (Iden 330 was the number - strange the things we remember)and during work hours the school could have phoned there (Dad worked with my Grandfather), but I think my parents also gave the school the number of our next-door neighbour, who had a phone.

More important is whether the school bothered to update their records. Two years ago (that is 2008 and long after I retired), the only address and phone number the school had for my guardians was an address we left when I was about 12*. I had two other addresses before I left school. Of course, like everyone else, I had to wrtite the envelope for my reports to be mailed in; if I had known then what I know now I would have put some wrong addresses on them and saved myself a few beatings.

* that was from my records as a pupil, not as an OB

[Angela Woodford]

Beatings!!!!

[sejintenej]

Beatings!!!!

What did you get when your reports were not glowing?
Far worse is what happened to my mother; back in the days when sand was used to dry ink her father accidentally caused her homework to be smudged and wrote an explanatory letter to the teacher. The teacher, despite that letter, gave my mother a beating so when she got home she was beaten again simply because the teacher had beaten her. (She ended up almost innumerate and was slow at reading and writing).
A bit better that a school not far away where pupils actually died; because priests were involved nothing could be done.

[CHDad]

Everything seemed to have gone really well in my D.S first term (probably better than I expected). We have been enjoying the Christmas holidays together as a family and then yesterday D.S announced that he did not want to board he would prefer to be at a school where he was a day boy! I think a lot of this is brought on by him seeing things through rose tinted spectacles over the Christmas break when, lets face it, life at home seems very cosy and appealing. I know I am not looking forward to returning to work either. I really hope that when he returns to CH in January he will settle back into CH life again quickly, has anyone else experienced similar "wobbles".

[Katharine]

CH Dad, my sons did not go to CH - but did go to boarding school as we worked overseas much of our lives for the British Council and so could be posted to places where there was no suitable schooling for them. Poor little things they started at 8, but they had been brought up to the idea it would happen. The fact that we, as adults, knew they would board did not prepare us for the gut wrenching feelings when they did. Even to the end of our service overseas, when they were both at university, it was always pretty traumatic driving to the airport and waving them off.

After my elder son's first term he did not want to go back, I wrote to the Housemaster who assured me that there would be something very wrong with home life if school life was better than that. They had the excellent idea of taking all the children to the panto on their second day back after Christmas. In fact each term they managed a treat like that.

So yes we experienced wobbles at times, but that little boy was diagnosed severely dyslexic, got help and now has a PhD in Chemistry. If we had carted him around the world with us, I don't think that would have happened. Good Luck with yours.

[wurzel]

In my 7 years at CH i can only think of 2 people in my house who actually left for issues to do with inability to cope / adjust to boarding life. 1 left at the beginning of his 3rd form i think (Piers Fletcher) he was just never able to adjust and always had to be the big "I am" with a story about how rich he and his family were and everything he had done (mostly fabricated i am sure) the other was a few years below me who "left" on his UF after becoming an incurable cleptomaniac - when it was first noticed a senior who later became senior grecian went and spoke to him about it nicely and calmly but after another weeks where he actually descended to the level of stealing a logging axe from a ironmongers in Horsham and a walkman from a locked cabinet in Boots (told 1 member of staff that another wanted to borrow the key) both in Full Housey Mr Sillett was informed and his study in the quietroom of LHB (he was a UF junior house monitor) was raided - he jumped out of the window into the hollybush below to try and escape (failed). He left the next day as I assume it was realised that it was some massive cry for attention and boarding was not suiting him. Otherwise the rest of us survived various ups and downs and made it through - as i am talking about my entire CH life that must include a few years above me and at least 4 or 5 below so maybe 15 x 9 pupils and so a very small attrition rate considering the background many came from and how alien/hostile the environment was unlike today where the boarding houses are far closer to pupils own homes than they were in the 80's.

I have just left my son for the residential exam and the whole atmosphere is totally different from then

[CHDad]

Thanks Wurzel

My son seems to have completely changed since Christmas, he now says he is looking forward to going back to school and genuinely seems bored at home ! Lets hope he remains positive, I think his "cold feet" were probably brought on by the cosiness of Christmas at home! Now we have gone back to work and the decorations have come down it is back to normal.

Good luck with your sons residential assessment.

[J.R.]

Once you get installed well into your second term, normally everything settles down.