Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Some bells are ringing. The post that talks about Drummond (Scott's assistant) having an affair with Nan. As I recall from my mercifully brief stays in the Sicker, Nan was one of the cleaners (described here as an orderly). I remember her as a rather nice, motherly woman who had a smile for every on...

The outages have merely confirmed my opinion (perhaps as a rather old person) that the internet and our reliance on it is not an entirely unmixed blessing. Some time ago I attempted to invest some money in an online bank product recommended by Martin Lewis. A two-year fixed rate cash ISA. It was an ...

All my laptop bits and pieces were untouched by yesterday's outages. Emails, Facebook, You Tube, news sites, even the CH Unofficial website. How can this have been?

Doing English under Gad (Edward Malins) in about 1958, he took issue with the accent of one of our number for crucifying his vowel sounds, and he further claimed that this was typically a "Col B accent". I don't know whether this was simply a prejudice of his as he was (I think) a previous...

John Sandys said that we gave our consent at 11. But how did we know what we were giving our consent to? At that age we tend to give our consent to anything that our parents suggest will be good for us, whether we think it a good idea or not. Education for several years by strangers of whom we know ...

I posted my thoughts onto the Boarding School Action site and ex-boarder, psychologist and author Simon Partridge replied. He reminded me that boarding schools are total institutions (along with monasteries, military barracks and mental hospitals). OK, so we were not actually restrained at CH but we...

Stockholm Syndrome is described as a theory which claims to show why hostages develop a psychological bond with their captors. This got me thinking about boarding schools. I note from this site that even some who found the school rugged, loveless, tolerant of bullying, etc, still make excuses for it...

Watch Ant and Dec.

A letter in this weekend's FT has a reader remembering one of Lamb's essays titled The Superannuated Man in which the author worked as a clerk for the East India Company in London. This rang a bell with me because I remember the same essay from A Book Of English Essays which I got as a class prize f...

Going through Google I put in "Laudanum in Lakeland" and discovered that many people in the Coleridge/Wordsworth family group were knocking back the tincture of Laudanum since it was the popular analgesic of the day for all ills, painkilling medicine not being so advanced then. Since it's ...

Having been in Coleridge B in the Puritan, pre Beatles 1950s (and before the girls moved in) I've often wondered if there's a definitive biography of Samuel Taylor. I believe that he was the son of a West Country clergyman, was beaten by the appalling Rev Boyer at CH, endorsed the revolution in Fran...

Today I get another of my letters in the FT. In this case in the FT Weekend edition in response to their last week's article about why customer service is such crap these days. It went: "Further evidence of idiocy down the rabbit hole. I have been awarded a Top Fan Badge by EDF Energy as a resu...

Thanks Mr Ed for putting the link to Maddy and the Carnival Band. As an old codger who came late to the internet I'm useless at putting links. I suppose I'm what is today described as a Cultural Christian - someone who was brought up with this stuff and still has a lingering affection for it, while ...

I suppose many of my older generation will not be believers but may still respond to the stirring hymns we used to sing in chapel. I've recently discovered an interesting set of albums by Maddy Pryor, taking one of her periodic rests from being singer with Steeleye Span, and titled "Maddy Pryor...

I've just caught up with this on You Tube. Why were comments turned off? I've had my issues with CH (admittedly from the 1950s) but I was pleased to see the Marines with their buzzcuts alongside CH's very mixed musicians and the lead drum major proudly sporting very Afro-Caribbean dreadlocks. Bravo!