Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

She has reached her target, I believe.

From her Go Fund Me page it looks like she’s about £250 short.

For a final nudge just think of the sublime horn solo in Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony. I discovered that work in my house record library at CH.

At about the same time I was into Sergeant Pepper - only pop record I know that used a horn quartet.

Bit of CH related pop trivia: Learned recently that the Brandenburg style trumpet solo on Penny Lane was played by an Old Blue.

Observer wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 11:22 am

She has reached her target, I believe.

From her Go Fund Me page it looks like she’s about £250 short.

For a final nudge just think of the sublime horn solo in Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony. I discovered that work in my house record library at CH.

At about the same time I was into Sergeant Pepper - only pop record I know that used a horn quartet.

Bit of CH related pop trivia: Learned recently that the Brandenburg style trumpet solo on Penny Lane was played by an Old Blue.

Courtesy of the late Sir George Martin. who I had a drink with on a few occasions in the late 70's when the (local to me), band 10CC had their recording studios, (Strawberry Studios) almost next door to my then local. He used the studio a great deal for recording and doing re-mixes. He was a perfect gentleman to talk to.

But I digress. Lets see what we can do to help this young lady on her way.

She’s done it, possibly thanks to a very generous individual who may just have responded from this site. There are some good people about.

Observer wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 11:22 am Bit of CH related pop trivia: Learned recently that the Brandenburg style trumpet solo on Penny Lane was played by an Old Blue.

Forget his name but I believe he presented a new bass drum to the band and there was a photo in the OB.

On the subject of French Horns, I have a jazz LP by Johhny Griffin, called Change of Pace, with Julius Watkins on French Horn. a quintet with 2 basses, (plucked and bowed) and drums.
First heard in Barnes B dayroom, probably belonging to Perdue.

It was David Mason. An impressive biog here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mason_(trumpeter)

First heard in Barnes B dayroom

I count my house mates’' musical tastes as perhaps the most influential of all the music I encountered at CH; they covered everything from Janacek, Dowland and Prokofiev through to BB King, Velvet Underground and Charlie Mingus; exceptional, looking back on it.

It points to a generally undervalued aspect of boarding school life: the part your peers play in your cultural development. I would say CH in the 60s was pretty exceptional in this respect. Is it controversial to suggest the pupils were a good deal more culturally curious and intellectually engaging than the majority of the staff?

I think you could probably say that. But I guess youngsters are always one jump ahead. We still don't know when guitars were allowed. In 1958 the cultural commissar Clarence ME Seaman banned pop music from the houses. And there were certainly no guitars back then to my knowledge - not even a bog standard acoustic of the sort that hard-up youngsters toted in the local skiffle group. Which showed Clarence's ignorance. Had he never heard of Django Reinhardt? So when did the first demon guitar make its appearance at CH? Michael Scuffil was there for a bit longer than me so perhaps he remembers.

Like Freaky, I have no recollection of guitars at CH right up until my departure in 1963.

Pop music in house was certainly out of the question. HOWEVER, fairly small tinny transistor radio's appeared on the market around 1960. Very handy for listening to Radio Luxembourg (208) Under the bed clothes in the dormitory with an ear piece.

In 1959 under Chern, Barnes B had mainly classical music. CJ Miller arrived and we got Blues and Jazz. I have a couple of 10" records that belonged to CJM with music from Leadbelly, Paul Whiteman, (History of Jazz) and also one of Edmundo Ross and his Rumba Band. I had forgotten about the last one, which I could have shown Edmundo, as he spent his last days in the Residencial in our village. Small world.
This encouraged the likes of Purdue to put on records from Thelonius Monk, Cannonball Adderley etc.
In about 1963 we started getting pop records played, and some of my year (White) tried to emulate the Small Faces hair style.
I can remember no restriction on music played in the dayroom, but maybe there was.
My radio was so large that it was difficult to disguise, although I got Pinnegar to put in an earpiece socket. Didn't use it very often.
Beacause I listened to such a variety of music, I now have no particular favourite, and would have great difficulty in selecting 10 for Desert Island Discs.

You were lucky then, Mr Hopgood.

No such pleasures in Coleridge B, as I recall.

And any mention of Association Football within the hearing of N.T. Fryer was tantamount to a death sentence !!

I can't speak for the other houses at Hertford, but we were very restricted. When I started there was a wind up gramophone in the house, later replaces with an electric one. We weren't allowed to play ANY music on it during Lent.

The more I read this Forum the more differences I find between the two establishments, JR and John Hopgood were contemporaries of mine, but speak of a very different experience in so many ways.

The only restrictions I remember we had were that you couldn't play music during prep times, so headphones if you were in the common room or at a very low level in your study.
Oh, and for some reason 2nd form couldn't have a Walkman or stereo, though that may have been a house rule like only X and above can use the kettle.

In PeA I think most GE and above had their own stereo (UF had no personal space to keep one), either an all-in-one system or separate hifi bits. As for particular styles we heard a bit of everything; heavy metal, blues, jazz, indie, pop, rap, classical, etc. The main influence came from whoever had the loudest speakers at the time!

Katharine wrote: ↑Thu Sep 06, 2018 1:14 pm I can't speak for the other houses at Hertford, but we were very restricted. When I started there was a wind up gramophone in the house, later replaces with an electric one. We weren't allowed to play ANY music on it during Lent.

The more I read this Forum the more differences I find between the two establishments, JR and John Hopgood were contemporaries of mine, but speak of a very different experience in so many ways.

Life at Hertford sounds absolutely gruesome back then Katharine. Culturally and in other ways. Was this due to the Headmistress Formerly Known as DR? Or That Woman as some refer to her?

rockfreak wrote: ↑Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:00 pm Life at Hertford sounds absolutely gruesome back then Katharine. Culturally and in other ways. Was this due to the Headmistress Formerly Known as DR? Or That Woman as some refer to her?

I don't really know the answer to that David. It probably was a lot to do with DR. One thing I have been aware of reading the recent posts on staff accommodation was the very real difference in Housemistresses and Housemasters. Ours were non-teaching members of staff, all lived in the house in just two rooms. They didn't even have private bathroom or loo. There may have been a washbasin in the bedroom, I don't think I ever went into it. The Housemistress combined the jobs of Matron, looking after our clothes etc and Housemaster in imposing discipline, and that varied from house to house. I can't imagine any woman really wanting the job!

A big difference from Horsham was space, we were on a restricted site in the town centre, so we omitted one verse of the Votum, which we called the Carmen. I think one verse extols the location, not suitable for us! We weren't allowed out into town until our O level year, then in a group of at least three.

It wasn't all bad, we didn't know any other boarding school life!

Watching music videos on You Tube I've just stumbled across an interesting video called "How playing an instrument benefits your brain - Anita Collins". This claims that recent experiments by neural scientists have shown that when you play an instrument (and I imagine this means at any level) fireworks start going off in your brain, causing a radical upping of activity between the left and right hemispheres. Listening to music is good too but apparently there's nothing quite like making the effort to play.

I await a 'trickcyclists' comment on your post avidly Freaky.