What was your favourite year at CH?

aguinaga · Post by **aguinaga** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 8:25 pm

I saw in another topic how someone said that they loved their first year then hated the next 4 then loved the next 2 etc...

I was just wondering what (if there is one) the general opinon is about which is the best year, and whether it changes depending on your age and at what time in the last 50+ years you were at CH.

huntertitus · Post by **huntertitus** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 9:15 pm

I would say I had 2 best years for different reasons

The first is the first year I spent at the religious, royal and ancient foundation and met an extraordinary chap called Roger Highfield who is now, I think, a very famous scientist

We used to go on long walks and his subject of conversation was "MOFFS"

He used to collect them, gas them, and pin them down

He was a wonderful and fascinating fellow

Never saw him again after school

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 1:27 am

and what was the second one - you had 2 favourites???
Roger Highfield is (I think) the science correspondent for the Telegraph and up to his eyes in bird flu and the like.

As for the subject thread, whilst I enjoyed nearly all my time at CH, I would have to say the the last bit was the best. I spent the last four terms doing something called a four term scholarship. Anyway - even though I didn't get to Oxford, I did get to spend a wonderful four terms doing my music (St Louis Jazz Band) and drinking, smoking etc etc. I cant remember doing many classes at all - just Russian (wonderful) and French (not wonderful).

I wonder what happened to Louis Bardu.....

Doctor Smellcroft · Post by **Doctor Smellcroft** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:07 am

I think I've tracked him down!

Doctor Smellcroft · Post by **Doctor Smellcroft** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 4:11 am

That photo appears at the foot of this webpage, with the caption: "MR BARDOU IN A BERET HA HA x :0P now this was funny!"

Richard Ruck · Post by **Richard Ruck** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 9:56 am

Rory wrote: I spent the last four terms doing something called a four term scholarship. Anyway - even though I didn't get to Oxford, I did get to spend a wonderful four terms doing my music (St Louis Jazz Band) and drinking, smoking etc etc. .................I wonder what happened to Louis Bardu.....

Yup, have to agree with this.

Music, in one form or another, was a part of just about every day of our lives.

Playing music, drinking, smoking, playing a bit of rugby, discovering a lot of great new music (height of the punk/new wave era), bunking off to see The Jam (having talked Crater-Head into giving us a lift to Horsham station).......

Oh and some of the academic stuff was OK, but, as Rory says, French wasn't always wonderful.

Double-periods with Louis Bardou and a reel-to-reel tape recorder, going through some Racine or MoliÃ¨re play line by excruciating line was a kind of Chinese water torture. Aaaarrrgh!

Still, I got an A (at the second attempt - an extra year of bleedin' MoliÃ¨re), so I must have learned something).

Mauriac etc. with Peter Farrar was much less painful.

Richard Ruck · Post by **Richard Ruck** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 9:58 am

aguinaga wrote:I saw in another topic how someone said that they loved their first year then hated the next 4 then loved the next 2 etc...

I was just wondering what (if there is one) the general opinon is about which is the best year, and whether it changes depending on your age and at what time in the last 50+ years you were at CH.

By the way, perhaps you should add 'LF' as an option for older slow-stream types..........

Richard Ruck · Post by **Richard Ruck** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 10:26 am

huntertitus wrote: We used to go on long walks and his subject of conversation was "MOFFS"

He used to collect them, gas them, and pin them down

He was a wonderful and fascinating fellow

Who was the bloke who used to eat things like caterpillars and, supposedly, a stunned wasp sandwich?

Great Plum · Post by **Great Plum** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 10:40 am

I really enjoyed the whole of the Grecians!

huntertitus · Post by **huntertitus** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 9:57 pm

Rory wrote:and what was the second one - you had 2 favourites???
Roger Highfield is (I think) the science correspondent for the Telegraph and up to his eyes in bird flu and the like.

You're right about RR - I always wanted to see him again - his parents took me on some perfect leave days - quite often we were among the sad few left behind because our parent didn't or couldn't take us out, so it was wonderful to be taken out by RRs parents.

Now what was my second favourite year?

I could say it was the year you joined the cloisters, my old mucker! - I hope I looked after you a bit while you got used to the place - Rupert was strictly NOT allowed to speak to me except for an hour on Saturday mornings - but what I was going to say was the other best year was when I discovered the agony and the ecstasy of drinking in the woods with one Roberto del Pellegrino. He was the only boy who boasted that he had shagged a lady aged 16 who I believed was telling the truth about the matter. (He was 16, not the lady - I never discovered HER age.) He went into a little detail but didn't overdo it like the ones you knew were hopeful virgins. He also could turn into a fantastically entertaining maniac if anybody spoke badly of his mother. He once poured an entire bottle of ink over a poor chap who, after being bated, made the ghastly mistake.

Italian, you see.

Roberto would usually do a small bottle of Scotch and I would do a bottle of red wine - the first I bought was called "Ederra Rioja" and not an eyebrow was raised by the proprietor when, at the famous off licence near Westons farm that OPENLY served boys in uniform and plainly under age, I asked for a bottle, pronouncing the "J" in English. (RIOJA, not riocca, for people who don't know what I am on about)

Later we went to Shelley's Wood and started the serious work of swallowing as much as we could as fast as we could - we had bicycles and I decided I was not as drunk as RdP said and wanted to prove the point. Having got my leg over (the machine) I tried to ride along the path but fell off almost immediately and landed on a sharp stump of a
broken-off sapling. The agony was so intense I seem to remember actually throwing up. Moments later I was gamely finishing off the bottle and the pain was becoming a memory but within 48 hours I would be facing Tom Keeley's "interview" and a jolly good thrashing.

J.R. · Post by **J.R.** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:03 pm

Last term at school, (summer 1963), because I'd already made my mind up that I WASN'T going back in the autumn.

Euterpe13 · Post by **Euterpe13** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:21 pm

UVI year, obviously - when you could finally balance out, to a certain extent, the hell of the first years and the mind-numbing boredom of the middle years...

Worst year? End of UV, when I desperately wanted to leave, and my mother couldn't afford to move me to a VI-form college - which allowed DR to impose her choice of A-levels ... ( and I don't care if it is un-PC , I hope she rots in H...)

Rory · Post by **Rory** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 1:28 am

Richard Ruck wrote:Who was the bloke who used to eat things like caterpillars and, supposedly, a stunned wasp sandwich?

Wasn't it some bloke called Suttcliffe. I saw him eat a daddy long legs once.

Richard Ruck · Post by **Richard Ruck** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:44 am

Rory wrote:
Richard Ruck wrote:Who was the bloke who used to eat things like caterpillars and, supposedly, a stunned wasp sandwich?
Wasn't it some bloke called Suttcliffe. I saw him eat a daddy long legs once.

No, it's come back. Wasn't it Pete Spurrier?

Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum