Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Today I get lead letter in the Guardian under the heading "Looking for signs of life in centre-right politics". After the Tory conference there was much talk of what is the way forward for the party. Several pundits and letter writers opined that the rot set in under Cameron or Johnson, but my ...

Let me add to that. What's religion like at CH? When I was there in the 1950s it was chapel six days a week and twice on Sundays plus house prayers in the evening. It seemed to be assumed that everyone was a believer. Clearly this could not be so. I got confirmed at around age 14 to please my ...

The severity with which tackles are judged these days dates from the "spear tackles" that were so popular in the days when Southern hemisphere rugby was so brutal that we were obliged to become brutal ourselves. Check out the Lions tour in South Africa led by Willie John McBride when foul play and ...

Watching our girls distinguishing themselves again in the World Cup this afternoon, I wondered if there was a girls' rugby team at CH. We're are presumably past the era when the girls were restricted to hockey and lacrosse.

One of the more bizarre snapshots of Saturday's demo by T Robinson and his football hooligans was the appearance of crosses (Calvary style) which were there to be picked up and borne by his long-suffering Christian followers. This was a new one on me. I'm used to going on UK Uncut actions, or Anti ...

Is Foureyes suggesting that only the boarding schools contributed to the British army? When did I say that the army shouldn't exist? My father was on the beaches of Normandy in 1944 doing his bit. He came from a working class background in Middlesbrough and left school at fourteen. But it was a fact ...

Out of interest, is there a CCF at CH these days? I imagine it long ago ceased to become compulsory like it was in my day. I used to be able to strip, clean, reassemble and fire a Bren (the machine gun of choice back then), .303 rifles and .22s, drill a squad, do an assault course in battledress ...

When I was there BW would sometimes pay a visit. We in Coleridge could see him standing on the HM's lawn chatting to Clarence but your brother in Thornton would have realised when the lunchtime band struck up the Dam Busters' march. He would usually give a talk to a group of boys who were at CH ...

It's nice that you still go to church Katharine. Is it CofE? I still have a lingering affection for the CofE although an atheist. I think perhaps we carry with us an earworm of the glories of the Anglican liturgy - the stirring hymns and the readings from the King James Bible - itself a work of ...

There is indeed a General Chat - Non CH section which we are currently posting in. My own street in sunny Saltdean (five miles east of the People's Republic of Brighton) was on the BBC South East News the other night when red flags had appeared high up on street lamps and took what I imagine to be ...

Given all the fluster about immigrants and small boats (would they rather they came across in large boats?) I'm surprised (or maybe not) that this issue which is all over our media has not produced a squeak on the CH Unofficial website. Where are the Farageists and Robinsonites? - the painters of ...

As you're nearer to my generation Katharine (although your brother exactly) I'm interested to know how things were for the Hertford girls at that time, compared to us. I've heard varying opinions of Dorothy West including one who described her acidly as "that woman".

So OK, names in sport on tele at present. The German ladies team who have just exited the Euros had a player named Minge, while we have an Aggie Beever-Jones. Fnurg! Fnurg! (F Saunders, Viz)

And again! Today, 12 July.

My letter is titled "Wealth has migrated away from ordinary people". As you can imagine the FT rather goes in to bat for those put-upon, internationally mobile, "high net worth" individuals who are supposedly doing so much for our economy and national life. I contest the ...

I shall read this with interest. I was in Col B when the Suez affair blew up and I remember how our monitors turned on the house radio at prep time so that we could listen to Anthony Eden flexing his muscles against Col Nasser. It split the nation. There were fights in Trafalgar Square between ...