Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

dsm wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2019 8:52 am What an amazing sidestep he had

After Bill McLaren described 'the twinkling toes of Gerald Davies' someone was heard to mutter 'goodnight Twinkle' when he stuck his head into the dormitory to wish us goodnight in Mid B.

In my era (60s-70s) it was 'something - (social?) services (aka sh1t shovellers). Clearing/re-digging Rip Kirby's pond was one task I recall - I think that was a short period between Scouts and RAF CCF for me.

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 jockstrap when she comes.” .... In the 1950s he smoked Senior Service cigarettes. In my time the song of the day was a variant of 'Early one morning' sun...

Roger Highfield and I christened the sound system with Max Frisch's 'The Fire Raisers' where we managed to send a quadrophonic fire engine 3 times round the stage. Dunky had a hissy fit when we missed a sound cue duriing rehearsals... Ping Vincent Smith was sweating blood at the time to get the home...

I very clearly remember taking part in 'Indians' in my final year 1973. It was the first time girls were imported from Horsham to play the female parts in a school play . . . except that I was the exception – and cast as sharp shooter Annie Oakley and the First Lady. One of my tasks was to sit on m...

It was called a Grasshopper, and it flew in my time, when an exuberant bungee team gave it extra beans and the pilot (master or boy - possibly Dickie Midwinter who was heading for the RAF I think) took off higher than was intended on Little Side, managed a turn and safe (but abrupt) landing in the m...

I find it difficult to envisage precisely what purpose they served and what they looked like. David :shock: The normal thing during the 70s was to have a travel rug thrown over a piece of string to partition off the toyce from the rest of the dayroom. When you were sitting down at the toyce, with a...

The McDaids! How could I have forgotten them? Paddy, Mick and... erm... McDaid Junior. Mid B. I have fond memories of Mick, who was my contemporary, particularly propping against him. I believe he joined the Hong Kong police. ... Peter? Mick was our secret weapon - once he had fired at the opposing...

LHA wrote: ↑ What does giving tangents mean? Using a ruler, striking downwards edgewise in a slicing motion, so tangentially (?) on the body rather than directly. Having been in Barnes A during Bob's tutorship, I heard tell of his description of a tangent as 'a straight line bisecting a curve', dem...

Ajarn Philip wrote: ↑Sun Apr 05, 2020 7:26 pm Pop quiz: which family had the most brothers at CH?

In my day, the Savages. 3 (or 4?).

Burns and McDaid also at least 3 each, I think.

These days, the don’t run it outside the ring fence so I assume they must just run around big side or something... Shelley's Wood was ok, it was when you were back on concrete running up the road to Peele bridge you suddenly noticed the weight of all that mud, which made trying to lift one foot in ...

J.R. wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:34 pm Certainly still in use summer 1963.

My older brother was described as a 'promising miler' by Pongo in his housemaster's report due to this in later 60's

It's on the 'Choir of Christ's Hospital, Music for the Festive Year' CD - I used it at father-in-law's funeral (E.J.R Morgan Thorn B 1937...). The arrangement is marked as by Mark Wardell, but he's the organist (recorded 1997). I don't know who composed the tune - other variations are used by other ...

NEILL THE NOTORIOUS wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:45 pm If there was such a note....

I recall being told that the lowest note reverberated in the headmaster's house, and those practicing on the organ expolored the limits of how much they could use/abuse it before the wrath appeared...

I might be mistaken in attributing this to John Shippen.

Pranks (or rumours of) that abounded in my time were the aforementioned cow (although in chapel), a rugby pitch marked with toilet paper in the quad (with a rugby ball attached to Edward VI), a urinal or toilet suspended from the dining hall cornice during the lav-end upgrades in the '60s, the cigar...