Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Simon Kerruish wrote:

eloisec wrote:Tom Keeley used to often park his car outside chapel in the evening and then fall asleep in it. Think he had that sleeping disorder, narcolepsy?

This is a change from his practice during chapel in the early 70's of hanging out on Big Side with a flashlight to catch anyone skipping the service. (As in, 'get a life'). He'd then report them to their housemasters who would do nothing. I think the general view was 'it's nice to see Tom enjoying himself'. Maybe this exhausting activity caught up with him in the end. Or maybe he did get narcolepsy. My father-in-law has it and once fell asleep while opening a Christmas present.

Tom Keeley (who had a fabulous collection of blue spined paperbacks about delinquent and degenerate boys) used to also get all hot under the collar and obsessed with the possibility of boys going out to indulge in homosexual acts and a friend of mine who used to go for a walk with another boy (both shall remain nameless) on bigside to "read poetry together" would often be followed, at a distance, by the enormous shape of Tom Keeley squashed into his tiny mini car driving with the lights off - very slowly - over the cricket pitches, in the hope of witnessing the vile act and then perhaps turning on the floodlights. This was what made those late night escapades so hilarious - like a scene from a Jaques Tati film

Great Plum wrote:The Chelsea was mercilessly destoryed in about 1999 when they put a car park on top of it!

Apparently, all the smoking dens had a name of a football club in the old days - perhaps someone can enlighten me on this?

We used to smoke at the bird sanc (trees behind cricket pavilion), the cut (down a track past the station in the woods, and various bushes, and in bad weather the tube but this was more risky

Hendrik wrote:crab flab and muck. certainly wasn't there when i entered CH in 96
bockers - we got an en-masse bollocking from big pete for that word. ooooh.

lav-ends still around
dayrooms have been abolished (foools) though the word is probably still known to all.
mongy - mr torkington
gary/ gary barlow - mr marlow
graham - mr chandler. it is his real name though. "GNC - serving the community..."
sh1t - mr o'boil
smeggy - mr o'mera
miggins - mrs higgins
gripper - mr sutcliffe
big pete - dr southern
fugly - mrs ireland
conners - didn't even deserve a nickname.
howie - mr howard
scouty people had loads of nicknames for miss helyar (now mrs wilkes, congrats, and to guy and their baby girl, whose name i can't remember): Lah-lah, aunty lo etc
sprouts - scouts
sicker - hardly ever used anymore.
tucker - ""
YOB - young old blues. that's what we're called. didn't put much thought into that one, did they? at least it's not New Old Blues
'don't you want to rick-it, it's cricket!' - lamb b, what can i say
browns - cigarette
the geeks - ICT department, aka waste-o-space, spongers, useless. come to think of it, the common room hate them more than we did.
zob - to use a PC, to play computer games
'scrambles!' - cried just before throwing food into the air, u'd then sit back and watch people beat the crap out of eachother just for a penny sweet. priceless.
caveman - mr gladding
lamping/lamp-posting - lifting the foot-end of someone's bed so that they were trapped upsidedown between their bed and the wall.

CH slang late 60's - mid 70's included

Slice -bread

Flab - revolting margarine

Muck - Jam

Skiffage Pie - A sort of vile flan made up of vegetable leftovers on pastry

To Skiff a bed - to pull off all blankets and leave a bombsite - usually after some poor fellow made the bed perfact with hospital corners

Bokkers - Groundsmen who never worked but leaned on a rake smoking a roll-up and gazing into the distance

Teachers nick-names included

Bo Shippen (B.O. = Body Odour - get it?)

Dolly O'Meara (He did have sort of doll-like features - plump faces and kind of shiny)

b****r Hayden - one needed to avoid being invited into the white Jaguar

Fallic Matthews - this was the way we spelt it - he simply couldn't get through a lesson without several cigarettes for which he left the room - I will soon post a story of what we did one time when he went off a-puffing

Bwana Goodall - A truly decent and good man - one of the best - very interested in Africa

Potty Burr - did extremely childish (and funny) pranks in class and would then suddenly pick out and punish any poor chap who giggled - he had some nasty forms of punishment which I may dare to post later - I was lucky once to be let off with 200 lines on Punctuality and Punctiliousness

w****r Todd - Harmless chap with the habit of rubbing his bottom up and down the radiator

I will post more teachers later when I have more time - in fact it would be good to open a new thread with a list of all remembered teachers names and their nicknames and then the stories about them

huntertitus wrote:

Great Plum wrote:The Chelsea was mercilessly destoryed in about 1999 when they put a car park on top of it!

Apparently, all the smoking dens had a name of a football club in the old days - perhaps someone can enlighten me on this?

We used to smoke at the bird sanc (trees behind cricket pavilion), the cut (down a track past the station in the woods, and various bushes, and in bad weather the tube but this was more risky

I remember my Dad telling me he used to have to smoke that far away from the school!

huntertitus wrote: in fact it would be good to open a new thread with a list of all remembered teachers names and their nicknames and then the stories about them

mr hargreaves - mugger
mr poulton - dicky p
mrs askew - VAGA
mr wright - pinky
mr overend - micky overweight
dobbie - gazza/fatboy/maaaa !!
mr gladding - baldrick
dr maddren - spider
mr alexander - hammer
mr martin - columbo
dr stuart - big bird/doc s
mr torkington - bhhhhhh mongy
mr o'boyle - sh1t


maybe we could start a database !

eloisec wrote:On the subject of teacher's nicknames ... anyone remember Boomer (Mr Carrington)? Memories of him shouting at pupils in dining hall and practically lifting them up and chucking them out! Huge man who could really scare the juniors! Went bright red whenever he was shouting at anyone.

But he could be a real gentle giant sometimes. We used to have our 2nd form English lessons in his garden in the summer.

He used to try and sell every new pupil one of those grim grey CH tracksuits when they arrived! Before they knew any better ...

I remember "Des" Carrington very well especially when his foghorn voice roared out from the back of the senior houses if any fool dared to walk on the running track - "GET OFF THE TRACK!" - he would bellow

He was a kind man - once a few friends were having a fag out behind Peele B and to out horror Des strode around the corner and stood in front of us. We had not had time to throw the evidence away and stood there
holding our fags, smoke curling upwards. To our astonishment he said something to the effect of "I din't see you but I'd better not see you again" We loved him for that and gave him tremendous respect ever after

marty wrote:

huntertitus wrote:in fact it would be good to open a new thread with a list of all remembered teachers names and their nicknames and then the stories about them

mr hargreaves - mugger
mr poulton - dicky p
mrs askew - VAGA
mr wright - pinky
mr overend - micky overweight
dobbie - gazza/fatboy/maaaa !!
mr gladding - baldrick
dr maddren - spider
mr alexander - hammer
mr martin - columbo
dr stuart - big bird/doc s
mr torkington - bhhhhhh mongy
mr o'boyle - sh1t


maybe we could start a database !

Excellent

I well remember Torkington's first day

The first time we gave new teachers the eyeball was in chapel and as soon as we saw his odd gait and nervous attitude we knew we had a victim in our midst

The maniacal laughter when one term he came in.......with a BEARD!
I will never forget the derision - the hyena laughter

Poor man - I wonder if he ever recovered

huntertitus wrote: Potty Burr - did extremely childish (and funny) pranks in class and would then suddenly pick out and punish any poor chap who giggled - he had some nasty forms of punishment which I may dare to post later - I was lucky once to be let off with 200 lines on Punctuality and Punctiliousness

This the same Burr who was a little mad and had a canal boat - I dare you to call it a barge!
We did on Scout camp - I don't know how many lived!

***edited due to crap spelling****

Great Plum wrote:

huntertitus wrote: Potty Burr - did extremely childish (and funny) pranks in class and would then suddenly pick out and punish any poor chap who giggled - he had some nasty forms of punishment which I may dare to post later - I was lucky once to be let off with 200 lines on Punctuality and Punctiliousness

This the same Burr who was a little mad and had a canal boat - I dare you to call it a barge!
We did on Scout camp - I don't know how many lived!

***edited due to crap spelling****

"NARROW boat" the teacher whined
The physicist with the narrow mind

Hobbit wrote:keeping cave......well never said during my stay, but we usedkeeping KV, so u would shout KV if a staff meember was coming.....so thates where it coems from we thought it could of been somehting to do with Mr Kemp, but then u had kemping (walking fast) as well so wqell alll seems that it has goone, i remember when asking for the kif at teh table was the nrom now u just get asked for the jug. hmmm i speak like it was ages ago when only 3 years ago i was htere......nostalga....am i to young for uit???

errm, 'KV' was just the way we pronounced 'cave' ('beware'). we all used it on our juniors. it was reported that some folks were messin around in Mab after lights, and shouted 'KV' when they heard kemp approaching, who dutifully told them: "Come on now chaps, you know it's pronounced cave"

legend in his own lifetime. R.I.P.

Kiff, spadge, PO Path

sejintenej

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "crotching" - secreting of smoking materials down the front of one's breeches in order to prevent them being confiscated during a search or when caught smoking.

Used to keep the Old Holborn nice and moist as well..... (sorry about that).

Richard Ruck wrote:Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "crotching"... <snip> ... Used to keep the Old Holborn nice and moist as well......

too much information!

FrogBoxed wrote:

Richard Ruck wrote:Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "crotching"... <snip> ... Used to keep the Old Holborn nice and moist as well......

too much information!

Just telling it like it was!

Stopped people scrounging your fags as well.

I bet it did.... bleurgh