Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

My cousin and her husband are casting around for a suitable secondary school for their ten-year-old son to attend - preferably non-fee-paying, but preferably also good - and they've been asking me about Christ's Hospital and the various methods of entry (which admittedly I'm not an authority on). They've also asked me whether ginger kids receive any sort of extra support to stop them from being bullied, what with the whole ginger thing being considered more worthy of humorous comment nowadays than was the case in days of yore. I'm totally ignorant vis à vis this sort of issue, so I thought I'd better ask this community whether it's up to speed on the topic.

In my day, there was certainly no shortage of ginges at Christ's Hospital, but I don't recall anyone at all being name-called or persecuted on account of their gingery appearance. It simply wasn't an issue. On the other side of the coin though, I can only recall one solitary ginger member of staff being employed at the school during the whole time I was at CH, which I suppose could be interpreted as a manifestation of institutionalised anti-gingerism. And by one solitary member of staff, I mean the entire staff - academic, catering, estate, musical, administrative and health-related. With hindsight, it doesn't look too healthy, does it?

I'm so out of touch these days that I've no idea whether CH goes out of its way to be inclusionist and actively seeks to offer places to disabled children, children from ethnic minorities, children of asylum-seekers and so forth. Does it? If so, how far does this kind of policy stretch? Does it stretch to offering a quota of places each year to the kind of children who are easy targets for bullies, like visually-impaired children, children who can't play sport, obese children and gingers?

Personally I think the whole 'quota' concept is pretty questionable, especially when it comes to campaigning for a 50/50 male-female split in Parliament, but at the same time it does make sense to offer disadvantaged kids a better chance of not being persecuted for their unavoidable differences. Obviously there's no way you can ever hope to eradicate bullying and name-calling entirely, but any move to create a safer haven for the easily ridiculed is okay by me. My cousin says her lad is already taking a lot of stick for being a ginge at his present school and that he was effectively driven out of his junior kickboxing class by kids who mocked him mercilessly for his colour scheme, so she's very keen he should go to a kinder school than the state secondary schools on offer in the Borough of Lambeth. She's essentially hoping to find a school that can be entered via a scholarship and which has some sort of avowed policy of being positive towards ginger-haired kids as opposed to leaving them to sink or swim. She says she thinks some schools may already have this kind of attitude and may even deliberately run some sort of quota scheme for ginger kids. It sounds a bit far fetched to me, but then what do I know?

Has anyone here ever heard of such a scheme? And if so, does CH have any sort of a standpoint on it?

Can't help answer your questions: sorry. However, I feel compelled to reply, even though I don't know what I want to say, except perhaps aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Your nephew might like to tell the sad little people who are tormenting him that, in Australia red heads are affectionately (note: affectionately) known as Rangas (as in orang utans).

What is wrong with people????????????????????????????????????????????

Not sure where the whole anti-ginger thing began. Did it start with the 'nobody wants a ginger baby' sketch Harry Enfield did? Whatever, it's just not on, especially when the ginger brigade were presumably here long before the Saxons arrived.

Personally, I too can only remember one ginger member of staff, Andrew Husband, who was a house tutor and history teacher in the 70s. As Bill Spooner points out, there were plenty of ginger pupils but remarkably few gingery staff. Maybe David Newsome had a problem with working alongside gingertops and deeply resented having to share the Common Room with them. Or perhaps there's some sixteenth-century CH statute about not employing ginger people in case they were Papists.

I can't quite remember whether Ajarn Philip is or was a gingerbread man. Possibly he was...or perhaps he was merely sandy brown. Too long ago to remember.

As for the contemporary habit of singling out ginger-haired children and picking on them, I despair. Talk about randomly inventing a reason for bullying.

It would be interesting to hear Josh's view on this topic.

Chrissie Boy wrote:Not sure where the whole anti-ginger thing began. Did it start with the 'nobody wants a ginger baby' sketch Harry Enfield did? Whatever, it's just not on, especially when the ginger brigade were presumably here long before the Saxons arrived.

Personally, I too can only remember one ginger member of staff, Andrew Husband, who was a house tutor and history teacher in the 70s. As Bill Spooner points out, there were plenty of ginger pupils but remarkably few gingery staff. Maybe David Newsome had a problem with working alongside gingertops and deeply resented having to share the Common Room with them. Or perhaps there's some sixteenth-century CH statute about not employing ginger people in case they were Papists.

I can't quite remember whether Ajarn Philip is or was a gingerbread man. Possibly he was...or perhaps he was merely sandy brown. Too long ago to remember.

As for the contemporary habit of singling out ginger-haired children and picking on them, I despair. Talk about randomly inventing a reason for bullying.

Simms was a redhead

Back in the 40s there was a chap in Ba B called "Ganzas" Jones.
He had flaming red hair, on which you would be unwise to comment !
A Yorkshireman, he was as hard as nails, and everybody knew it,
Fast bowler, Rugby Terror and Athlete.

I can't remember any sort of stigma about the colour of one's hair, this may be of a later generation.

If Ganzas is still alive, and reads this ----- I want to explain that my comments are entirely complimentary, and in no way intended to offend !!!!

Quite coincidentally and probably irrelevant, there were student riots close to our flat last night, which were reported in the local newspaper. The rioter on the ground, surrounded by riot police, is a red head.

In another newspaper, the rioter ( a different one) has dreadlocks.

I wonder if they were selected for "special treatment" by the police or the press.

NTN wrote:Back in the 40s there was a chap in Ba B called "Ganzas" Jones.
He had flaming red hair, on which you would be unwise to comment !

We had a monitor in Col A whose cerebral covering was nothing to comment on. However he couldn't swim so no swimming costume; that was when the real bright carrot became apparent. JW might remember him
There is a woman in the French village who dies her hair a horrible carrot colour; she must be in her forties or fifties and it looks awful.

Wasn't it Catherine Tate that did a wonderful parody of 'gingers' being tormented where there was a special refuge set up for them ?

ISTR a big fuss in the media about a greetings card that mocked gingers. A ginger child's mother complained to the supermarket (Asda?) which was selling it, & it was withdrawn. My mother (b.1913) was name-called as a child because of her red hair. My middle neice has inherited the gene, but I haven't heard her complain about that sort of thing.

Further to that post, there's a case reported this evening on Yahoo about a woman who's been bullied on Facebook over her ginger hair, although she wears a wig to hide it. Someone had found an old photo of her as a child with frizzy ginger hair. She'd been bullied throughout her schooldays over the hair, hence the wig.

I understood that the short temper gene was linked to the gene for red hair. Why aren't the Rangas/Gingernuts standing up for themselves/beating the c$ap out of the bullies?

And, honestly, smelling of Twisties and bus shelters if far preferable to three day unwashed armpit. Yes, summer holdays are over and I'm back to sharing my chauffeur-driven Merc with hoardes of very smelly people, not one of whom has naturally red hair.

I find it strange that this subject has raised its head.

I have know several ginger kids in my younger days, and I can honestly say I never witnessed them being bullied !

Where IS Josh, when you need him ??

I hear on the grapevine that Josh is currently a student at Cliff College in Derbyshire - he clearly has his mind on more important matters than hair-colouring!

Fjgrogan wrote:I hear on the grapevine that Josh is currently a student at Cliff College in Derbyshire - he clearly has his mind on more important matters than hair-colouring!

What, you mean, like girls??????????????????????????