Do privileges still exist at CH?

[jtaylor]

indeed, which is why most of our generation don't see 'bombing the sh1t out of something' as the ultimate solution to the worlds problems.

We don't?? I thought that was exactly our problem?

...i still can't believe they made you listen to The Archers...harsh...

Agreed - that was harsh!

[sejintenej]

Hi Hendrik (and assorted others)

sejintenej wrote:
For everybody:
-No Telly!
-Radio for about 30 minutes an evening between supper and Prep - usually The Archers
-Approved newspapers
- NO POP music unless approved by masters (who would not approve any such thing!)

Remember that these were different times. TV was almost totally unknown (I saw the Coronation 1953 on TV and then didn't see TV for many yuears afterwards.
Radios? the radio club used to make them with crystals (and I suspect bits of cat)
In fact we worked fairly hard - homework could be up to 3 hours a night plus catching up at weekends; with the whole house crammed in one day room you couldn't disturb those with real work to do. To give you an idea, one evening's English homework was to learn off by heart some poetry by I think Pope (?The rape of the Lock) - 3 printed pages, overnight. Next day I fluffed 2 lines and got 2 hours detention. I never want to see poetry again. Of course you had homework typically in 2, sometimes 3 subjects in one evening.

That was also the alleged reason for the Pops being banned (as published in the Daily Sketch?) though classical music was allowed.

so you went to school in east germany then...

like you ........

sejintenej wrote:
Methinks you lot got it soft

Well, didn't you? When I see my own children, grandchildren .....

indeed, which is why most of our generation don't see 'bombing the sh1t out of something' as the ultimate solution to the worlds problems.

I don't believe that we thought any different to that; we learned to look at both sides and make a judgement. OK so this was in the days of The Empire ......

like spawns like. cruelty spawns cruelty. hate spawns hate. violence spawns violence. (and tertiary education spawns bollox cliches like these! )

Yes - stupid politicians of a "strange" hue and ex housie


...i still can't believe they made you listen to The Archers...harsh...

Beleive it or not that programme was official government propaganda. It was created as a way of informing farmers of the latest regulations, recommendations etc. IMHO a pretty good method because everyone listened to it before "In Town Tonight" which had the besy jingle introduction on the wireless. For ITT the presenters had to wear Dinner Suits (penguin outfits to youse) even though it was on the wireless!

At least it was better than Mrs Dale's Diary.......

Somehow, Kit Aitken(my senior housemaster) got the correct impression that I was not up to date on current affairs (not the Charlie / woman type) so I was required to read one newspaper every day and then was tested.
However, I had it easy. Mr Cherniavsky (?sp) required that every pupil in his classes complete the "Thunderer"crossword by 9 am or else. Since it was very Classics based, he never had an exam failure (including the fact that everyone did S level) in the 13 years up to when I left. (He wrote the crossword!)

Have I gone O/T? well we do get some exceptionally good wine here but no "Mr Kipling's exceedingly fine cakes"

[marty]

David Brown - you certainly do seem to have had it hard (no pun intended) whilst at CH !! What is puzzling me is that you've put your years as 1952 - 1961. Despite not being much of a maths lover I make this NINE years ! You deserve a medal my friend - and we all thought seven years were tough !!!

[Hendrik]

We don't?? I thought that was exactly our problem?

i don't consider myself part of GW bush's generation. he is quite considerably older than me. and you for that matter (i think!)

and I suspect bits of cat

don't think i want to know!

so you went to school in east germany then...

like you ........

i meant the whole 'radio silence' thing. wasn't implying you were even left-of-centre.
and i ain't stalinist

Methinks you lot got it soft

Well, didn't you? When I see my own children, grandchildren .....

we did get it softer than your gen., undeniably. i meant it was no bad thing that we did. n'est pas?

...i still can't believe they made you listen to The Archers...harsh...

Beleive it or not that programme was official government propaganda. It was created as a way of informing farmers of the latest regulations, recommendations etc.

it still is used for that purpose. they make a very bad job of disguising that, even today. the episodes during the 60s, 80s, 00s footnmouth outbreak were almost identical. not that i'd know.
The Archers is disgustingly pro-hunt though. whatever your views, you must agree that using the BBC as a platform is unacceptable.

[Great Plum]

David Brown - you certainly do seem to have had it hard (no pun intended) whilst at CH !! What is puzzling me is that you've put your years as 1952 - 1961. Despite not being much of a maths lover I make this NINE years ! You deserve a medal my friend - and we all thought seven years were tough !!!

Probably was in the prep school too...

[sejintenej]

Masses of answers:

Yes, 9 years Great Plum.
Prep A from age 9 to 11 and then Col A.
Apart from moving up from Prep we didn't change houses. However there was a competitive intake at age 11 for those who could pay but de facto there was never to my knowledge any consideration or comment about parents' ability / inability to pay within the school; we were all in the same boat.
There was one case which did raise quite a bit of ire. In those days S level was as far ahead of A level as A was to O level; ie very very hard and a near guaranteed entry to Oxbridge. However Ashton in Col A got 3 S levels as well as heaven knows how many A levels and got turned down by all the universities he applied for. He stayed on to get a further 3 S levels - unheard of. It was put down by us to his religion - and after 6 years I didn't even know he was one until this came up. He must have been 20 when he left.

Archers - haven't heard it since 1961 (and don't want to!)

Marty; not a maths lover? I failed it at O level! I eventually ended up with 3 different O level maths exams - a total con if you add each one into the sum total and put that on CVs.

Hard? These were different days. There were two (ineffective) radiators in the dorm but the windows leaked cold air like a fire hydrant so winter nights were coolish. One school sheet and one school blanket (threadbare) plus, if you could afford it, one blanket of your own.
That after having to run over to Barnes Green in the snow (I don't think we normally went as far as Billingshurst) followed by a cold shower (no hot water). Believe it or not, Housie was, for me, more comfortable than outside.

You also have to remember that communications in those days were far worse than now. If you go to many places in the US even today, international news is what happens the other side of the State line. The ignorance of things European is almost incomprehensible - like the Yank who asked me in which state Eire is situated and another senior New York executive who thought that Morocco was somewhere in the south west USA.
In our day we might find our way around an atlas but there was pretty meagre foreign news "Terrible floods. No Englishmen killed" was all you might see of 1000 killed in India.

You don't miss what you've never had.

Hendrik; if you spoke French like that down my local ..... well, I wouldn't take you; looks like language teaching hasn't improved

To be fair, when we did A levels we were required to do:
2 periods a week of a new language not for exam and
2 periods a week Manual Shop (again no pressure)
One of my housemasters had been a professor in Seville and gave me Spanish to do in the back of German classes; got through O level oral in 9 months no problemo thanks to him. Missed written because I had to work abroad.

[Richard Ruck]

It was put down by us to his religion - and after 6 years I didn't even know he was one until this came up.

Was one what?

By the way, the dorms had not changed in the '70s - the two radiators had the same effect as heating a cathedral with a hairdryer, although we had been upgraded to 2 school blankets (ooooh, luxury!).

[marty]

- like the Yank who asked me in which state Eire is situated and another senior New York executive who thought that Morocco was somewhere in the south west USA.

I love these ! An American once asked my mother if she does her shopping in the common market ! We went on an archaeology "field trip" to Italy on my Grecians. Whilst at Pompei an American overheard us talking and trapped me into a conversation..."what do you think of this place"? he asked. "Great" I replied. To which he said (and I kid you not) "yeah, neat IDEA isn't it ! Pity Disney didn't think of it and build one in California!" Suffice to say I made me excuses and left. I still find it funny that someone could travel all that way to somewhere so old only to believe it was all a theme-park style mock-up ! Unbelievable....

[Rex]

David,

Mr Cherniavsky (?sp) required that every pupil in his classes complete the "Thunderer"crossword by 9 am or else. Since it was very Classics based, he never had an exam failure (including the fact that everyone did S level) in the 13 years up to when I left. (He wrote the crossword!)

I'm a bit puzzled here. As a member of a later generation I'm open to correction, but as I understand it Michael Cherniavsky was Head of History. The crossword-devising classicist was Derrick Macnutt, and according to this tribute http://home.freeuk.net/dharrison/ximenes/ximenes.htm the paper he contributed to was The Observer, not The Times.

Another master, Francis 'Fred' Haslehurst, taught both classics and history and devised crosswords for the Daily Telegraph, but I don’t know if he was still around in your day?

[sejintenej]

Richard Ruck:
Ashton's background. Taken to email; I don't want to cause a racism storm

Rex.
A puzzle here. The master I knew of taught Greek and Latin and his pupils used to talk about his habit of using the ideosyncracies (sp?) of individual Roman/Greek writers in his crosswords.
Being pretty prehistoric my memory may be / is failing. Are we talking about the same man? You are at least 15 years behind me.

McNutt: I see he was a housemaster for 35 years but I don't think the person I am thinking of was a housemaster in my day. Don't recognise the photo.

Francis Hazlehurst; not sure I know the name. Certainly never taught me but I was far closer to the sciences.


I'm going to be away for 10 days so don't expect followups

[Richard Ruck]

Richard Ruck:
Ashton's background. Taken to email; I don't want to cause a racism storm

Fair enough - I was just wondering what sort of personal religious beliefs might cause a person to be held back in the way you describe.

[jfdawson]

By the way, the dorms had not changed in the '70s - the two radiators had the same effect as heating a cathedral with a hairdryer, although we had been upgraded to 2 school blankets (ooooh, luxury!).

They weren't up to much in the late eighties/early nineties, either. We had a single hot water pipe running down one side of the dorm, to provide heating for the lot. This had some effect if you were close to it, but none at all if you were on the other side of the dorm. The effects of draughts from the permanently jammed-open windows far outweighed the benefits on a cold night.

Finally, during a particularly cold spell in about '92 (my GE), some of us made a complaint about this. The authorities installed an instrument to record the lowest temperature achieved in the dorm during the night... and finding that it was sub-zero, they installed a second water pipe, on the other side of the dorm, the very next day! May not sound like much, but it made a considerable difference at the time. I'm still not sure whether anyone twigged that we'd - erm - "repositioned" the thermometer during the night...

Do all the dorms have carpets and curtains these days?

[Great Plum]

***snip****
Do all the dorms have carpets and curtains these days?

They did by my LE - `94... Now there are no open dorms - I think the largets have about 6 people in...

[East Gun Copse]

David,

Mr Cherniavsky (?sp) required that every pupil in his classes complete the "Thunderer"crossword by 9 am or else. Since it was very Classics based, he never had an exam failure (including the fact that everyone did S level) in the 13 years up to when I left. (He wrote the crossword!)

I'm a bit puzzled here. As a member of a later generation I'm open to correction, but as I understand it Michael Cherniavsky was Head of History. The crossword-devising classicist was Derrick Macnutt, and according to this tribute http://home.freeuk.net/dharrison/ximenes/ximenes.htm the paper he contributed to was The Observer, not The Times.

Another master, Francis 'Fred' Haslehurst, taught both classics and history and devised crosswords for the Daily Telegraph, but I don’t know if he was still around in your day?

Fred Haslehurst died in 1952, I hadn't realised he was also into crosswords.
'Boom' Macnutt was the well known compiler for The Observer under the pseudonym of Ximenes.

[J.R.]

TOAST ????????????

TELEVISION ???????????????

RADIO ?????????????????????

The nearest we came to any of these luxuries was around 1962, when the mini transistor came on sale. About a tenner if memory serves, (a lot of money in them days !)

In Col B we'd smuggle 'em in, with the standard ear-piece, and listen to good old Radio Luxenburg under the bed-clothes.

(Did Horace Batchelor ever win a fortune on the pools himself ??)