Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Looking especially at the Speech Day clip, it occurred to me that, but for the adult civilian dress, this could equally well have been 30 years later, or any time up to the introduction of senior and junior houses. Even that would not have been too obvious, given the length of the individual excerpts, so we might almost say until the arrival of the girls. But the women's hats and dresses give it away. Even the London clips could almost have been 1960s (somewhere on this forum there's a picture of me marching across London Bridge which looks almost the same). The main difference I notice here is that most of the men in the street are wearing hats.

I think postwaroldblue may have conflated two occasions. The whole school attended St.Paul's in 1953 for a service celebrating the school's 400th anniversary; as far as I remember the Queen was not present. The presentation of a loyal address to the Queen by the Senior Grecian was attended by a select few only (four?), and was earlier than the St.Paul's service on the occasion of her first visit to the City of London after her accession, when traditionally CH has the right to do this for each new sovereign. The tradition is commemorated on the Temple Bar memorial in the centre of the road at the west end of Fleet Street, which has a mini-sculpture on each side one of which depicts the scene of Queen Victoria's first entry to the City with hear carriage halted at Temple Bar to be greeted by the Lord Mayor, with two CH boys among the reception group. I believe that it was here rather than at St.Paul's that Johnstone presented CH's address.

There is a photograph opposite page 160 of The Blue for September 1953 of the Loyal presentation to HM The Queen at Temple Bar This shows the Senior Grecian, H.B.G. Johnston, Peele B, kneeling in front of Her Majesty. There are at least 4 other Grecians present. Also visible are the Head Master HLO Flecker and the Treasurer C. Wilfred Thompson. The photograph appears by courtesy of The Daily Mail. Was there a cine film taken of the event ?

I stand corrected.