Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

An indication of Pongo’s admirable cleanliness and fastidiousness was the fact that his hands and nails were scrupulously clean and pink, for he was a chain smoker of Senior Service. After each cigarette he brushed his fingers, nails, etc, with a nail brush. This was in stark contrast with Fal (Mr P...

Interesting though these comments on the politics of the 70s are, the original observations are of equal interest in my opinion. Can anyone explain why this symposium took place? Was it because participants were simply interested in mental health problems and wanted to learn more and exchange opinio...

Another so called ‘party dance’ that was very popular in the dancing class, and also at the formal dances with St Catherine’s (girls') School, Bramley, Surrey, was the Lambeth Walk. There must have been some sort of coordination between the two schools, for those girls seemed to know the few ‘party ...

The Grecians’ ballroom dancing classes ended because Mr DCF Chaundy, who initiated and taught them (a teacher of physics, very pleasant chap and junior housemaster in Barnes A) left CH for a post at Malvern College. He was a most enthusiastic folk dancer and successfully taught ballroom and Morris d...

I was at CH in the 1950s and never heard of the Flying Bomb incident. But it is unsurprising that Mr Kirby did not mention it. He was absent and serving in the Royal Signals for the duration of the war.

Saying “NO” . Many masters/teachers at CH had their idiosyncratic ways of speaking. Pongo had a way of saying “No” that I have never come across anywhere else. He would say quite often, “That is OUT , definitely OUT ”. This phrase was sometimes copied by some boys in his house, but he was no more n...

By the general observation of the external shape of his lower pubic region when trousered (that is when Pongo was trousered, not the observer). I must modestly assert that it was not my discovery. Many others, who were not necessarily keen singers, shared this opinion of his jock strap and/or genita...

Pongo was taller than 5’ 8”. But he did have a curious characteristic. Either he always wore a jock strap or his ‘wedding tackle’ was unusually small. In the Housey version of “She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes,” of Pongo’s days, one popular verse was, “She’ll be wearing Pongo’s joc...

Perhaps overall most brothers were in the same house. The following pairs certainly were:

Arnold
Cavendish
Eyles
Griffiths
Millwood
Stileman
Wilkins

I too was at CH and studied history there in the 1950s, not as a speciality, for I ‘majored’ in science. My most impressive history teacher was the superb Mr Edward Malins, so I suspect I was unusually fortunate. With him teaching me in the GE I studied the French Revolution, the Chartist and other ...

During the 1940s and 50s only the term ‘Masters’ was used, not ‘Teachers.’ To include another period in this thread - during the 40s and very early 50s there were a few female teachers, relics of the many war time female replacements of males, who were then in short supply. They taught only the lowe...

In a recent article published in The Paris Review , on the value of puns (https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/11/15/in-defense-of-puns/) there are the following two passages. Charles Lamb once remarked that, when the time came for him to leave this earth, his fondest wish would be to draw his l...

Is there anywhere else in developed Europe where all this entry gymnastics cobblers exists? People seem to deal with secondary and tertiary education and get their uni places in a reasonably straightforward manner. And do they do any worse than us as a country? Perhaps someone with personal knowled...

… it's my understanding that member-only groups don't tend to get scraped by Google etc. and thus provide a minor level of privacy compared to completely open groups.

Question – What does “scraped” mean here?

It seems highly, highly unlikely, but one never knows.

Was the Peter Knight mentioned above, Peter Luke Knight, Barnes A, 1948-54, who left CH for a distinguished career in the services?