Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I say I went to a boys' boarding school in the 50s/60s. I say it quite often, not least because the experience was so alien to anything my children, let alone their children, underwent that it relativizes all experience. When talking to my teenage grandchildren, I point out that when my grandfather ...

As far as hating Harrow, Michael, many eminent figures have hated their public schools but have not moved to eliminate them. True, but that was not my point. In the circumstances, Churchill personally might well have acquiesced in their elimination. But governments do sometimes have to listen to th...

Tory grandee Rab Butler wanted to [abolish private education] in 1944 when charged with reforming education but was talked out of it by the Old Harrovian Churchill.

Rab went to Marlborough and Churchill famously hated Harrow. I think there was more to it than that...

Life at CH could be nasty and brutish (though not short), and of course I missed home comforts (though CH did have running hot water). But would I have preferred a daily 2-hour commute through dreary suburbs rather than a pleasant walk to school? I dunno. And would I have preferred having my parent...

Re Kirby's lab, which, as I said above, was a real treasure trove for anyone who stayed after school or popped in outside school hours. But it did contain a large hand-drawn poster illustrating what went on in a pasture: cow eats grass, produces milk/meat, cowpat fertilizes ground. (And probably a b...

It is said of Enoch that Harold Macmillan had his chair moved in the Cabinet Room because he (HM) could not bear to have those 'staring eyes' opposite him. I once passed Enoch outside Sloane Square underground station. We had eye contact for maybe a second or two, and I realized what Macmillan meant.

I never knew that Enoch Powell preached at CH. Was his sermon an attack on capital punishment, which he opposed (though in low profile, because it would cost him votes)? Or was it an attack on the independent British deterrent, which he also opposed (and ditto). Or did he propagate his very strange ...

Life at CH could be nasty and brutish (though not short), and of course I missed home comforts (though CH did have running hot water). But would I have preferred a daily 2-hour commute through dreary suburbs rather than a pleasant walk to school? I dunno. And would I have preferred having my parents...

I left in 1963 and was offered a job at CH (by Newsome) in 1970. He, I think, regarded me as a safe ally as he'd helped me in the past. I turned it down without much thought. The reason I gave him was perfectly true, namely that I'd been at CH for 8 years and wasn't prepared to go back after just 7 ...

I am thinking of going. If anyone else is, let me know. I’ve never sat in a public gallery before. Is there anything I need to know? I used to drop in at the Old Bailey when I had nothing better to do. What you need to know: 1) it helps to have a strong stomach; 2) barristers relish the opportunity...

In the 1920s through to the 50s, training for more than 2-3 hours a day would have been regarded as cheating. Once it became acceptable to train full-time, people had to look for another behavioural manifestation to which they could apply the term. Frankly I think 'professional sport' is an oxymoron...

Re 'Scouting for Boys', mentioned in this thread some time ago:

scholarly opinion is divided on whether Baden-Powell was aware of the double entendre.

As someone who has studied WWII in great detail, I can say that if the right military leaders had been listened too at the end of that war, we certainly would NOT be in the position we are in today Pls expand. Sounds interesting... Senior Generals and Montgomery in particular, asked Churchill to pu...

Given the fact that the place is now co-ed, I imagine that sexual experimentation and recreation now (mostly) take different forms. And I suppose it needn't be so clandestine.

But does anyone know: have many marriages been made at CH (between pupils, I mean)?

Rockfreak: sadly Kenneth Horne was long dead (d. 1969); he was an earlier era. But yes, in the 60s he was unbeatable.