CH food

Share your memories and stories from the Hertford Christ's Hospital School, which closed in 1985, when the two schools integrated to the Horsham site....

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Liz Jay
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Post by Liz Jay »

Now Alex that's very unfair......I was much too small weedy and skinny to be one of the CH Amazons....not sporty ( wasn't it unfair you had to take your glasses off to play games so they didn't get broken? and then someone would bounce a netball off your cheek or give you a good whack with a hockey stick while your defences were down...)
And neither beautiful nor multi-talented - hah!
I did blossom later but in a gentler less challenging environment. I think another year at CH would have probably been make or break, to be honest the only time I began to relax enough to enjoy it was the last term I was there, when I was "working my notice", fast becoming a non-person and worthy of scant attention from the authority figures!!!
Thanks to yourself and other nice friends I have some happy memories, I congratulate all of you who stayed the course.
It would have helped if I had been sporty and/or musical perhaps, I don't know. I was artistic (a bit) but that didn't get me many Brownie points.
I've puzzled over this a time or two, and eventually came to the conclusion that the reason why most of the time at CH I felt a bit lost, was entirely my father's fault. Yessss!!! Blame the deceased parent...he was so keen for me to do well that I was force-fed for the entrance exam, I presume I must have done well as a result, because I was put straight into the second year (lower fourth). Then as the effects of all that cramming wore off while I struggled to adjust to this new planet, I slid rapidly down the ratings with a consequent huge loss of self-worth. The other side of this was that when I later changed schools and found myself effortlessly top of the class, I got to experience the same culture shock but the other way round!!!! .
Alex I still have a few freckles but they are faded nowadays. No longer my trademark!!

Liz (ex 6's '66 - '68 )
Katharine
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Post by Katharine »

Liz Jay wrote:Alex I still have a few freckles but they are faded nowadays. No longer my trademark!!
What is it about Alex and freckles? They were one of the things she remembered about me, and we only overlapped by her first two terms?
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
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Post by Alexandra Thrift »

Katharine wrote:
Liz Jay wrote:Alex I still have a few freckles but they are faded nowadays. No longer my trademark!!
What is it about Alex and freckles? They were one of the things she remembered about me, and we only overlapped by her first two terms?

I remembered how important ( DRs Monitress and Prefect ! )you were as well Katharine ! :wink:
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Post by Alexandra Thrift »

BTW Katharine, I read the Obit. of Your Great Aunt, in the "Old Blue" again..but slowly this time.What a marvellous and intrepid life she led!She moved around a great deal...even into her old age she was still moving around this country ( so I suppose she had scaled down slightly...although she still flew past Everest in her Eighties!).A tough nursing career as well. I suppose that after being born on an obscure Isle in the middle of nowhere she was destined to keep on exploring! I expect you miss her,Katharine....I wonder if I ever met her on some old girls day in sixes ?

Why don't you write her biography? I'll buy it .
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Post by Katharine »

She was my aunt, Alex not my Great Aunt.

The story gets better, her father (my grandfather) ran away to sea from his wicked stepmother. In a storm vowed that if he survived he would become a monk. Between his first vows and his final ones he met, Ellen, the lady always described to me as 'your flame haired grandmother'. Grandfather changed his mind and was ordained instead!! He decided to become a missionary and his first appointment was to Labrador. Ellen was nursing her own Granny who had brought her up and wouldn't leave her. Eventually Ellen was free of responsibilities and wrote to Labrador to say 'Do you still want me?'. After getting a reply, she got on a small boat to cross the Atlantic, by herself in the early years of the last century. They married there and their first son was born there, Father and Aunt Helen being born in the Bahamas.

My own mother is Irish and was the first known to leave the country for her nursing training. She met my father then training to be a missionary, his first posting was to Borneo. At that time had they got married while she was training as a midwife she would have been kicked out, so she was to follow him and marry him there, however he only got as far as Southampton Water. The Japanese had invaded and had beheaded his predecessor on the beach. He became a chaplain in the RAF.

Can you be surprised that my parents did not turn a hair when I said I would do VSO? My mother came to Borneo twice, as a grandmother not as a bride, sadly father had died by the time we went there.
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
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Post by Jude »

OK Girls and Guys.................

Back to the FOOD THREAD PLEASE - I need recipes to put on my wesite - and in the entire 5 pages of this so called food thread there is only 1 - YES JUST ONE recipe - (THANK YOU VONNY) so attention please - and add your recipes here or to my email

judicomber@aol.com

Thanks
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts.
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Post by Vonny »

Jude wrote:there is only 1 - YES JUST ONE recipe - (THANK YOU VONNY) so attention please - and add your recipes here or to my email
:lol: :lol:

I've still got all 3 of my "Miss Jukes" recipes, albeit I was taught for the last year of my O level by Miss Hartnett (later Mrs Robinson) at Horsham.
2's 1981-1985 2:12 BaB 1985-1988 BaB 41
helenthegenX
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the Juke's recipes

Post by helenthegenX »

I still have my LV and LVl recipe books from 1962 adn 1964 if anyone REALLY wants school Christmas cake recipe, mince pies, sausage rollsrock cakes... and when more of a grown-up the thrills of cheese croquettes, russion fish pie, bourbon biscuits, maids of honour,shortbread, brandy snaps, and lemon merinque pie. If anyone honestly want the recipes, I can post them somewhere. And BTW - school sausage hot pot had onions in it (lots of them). ciao
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Post by Katharine »

Welcome Helen, you sound to be just about my vintage. We used to see those recipes come out every year didn't we? I don't remember the bourbon biscuits but can relate to all the others.
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
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englishangel
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Post by englishangel »

Katharine wrote:Welcome Helen, you sound to be just about my vintage. We used to see those recipes come out every year didn't we? I don't remember the bourbon biscuits but can relate to all the others.
She is exactly your vintage Katharine, check her profile.
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Jude
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Re: the Juke's recipes

Post by Jude »

helenthegen wrote:I still have my LV and LVl recipe books from 1962 adn 1964 if anyone REALLY wants school Christmas cake recipe, mince pies, sausage rollsrock cakes... and when more of a grown-up the thrills of cheese croquettes, russion fish pie, bourbon biscuits, maids of honour,shortbread, brandy snaps, and lemon merinque pie. If anyone honestly want the recipes, I can post them somewhere. And BTW - school sausage hot pot had onions in it (lots of them). ciao
Welcome Helen - post them to me / or scan and email and I will put them up on my website so all can see! Do you have Queen of Puddings??
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts.
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Angela Woodford
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Sausage Hot-Pot

Post by Angela Woodford »

This was for lunch every other Saturday! My memory of the hot-pot (sausages, tinned tomatoes, onions, macaroni) is that the skins would become detached from the sausages, and appear as a separate entity in the mixture, the sausage itself a bald spongy pallid and sometimes crumbling presence.

And what about tea-time spag, in it's orange glory - not a lot of spaghetti, a puddle of the gloppy sauce and a patch of solidified cheese on top? Deborah Bowers had a way of improving it by warming the cold toast on top of her (stained plastic) mug of grey tea, and coaxing the puddle on top once returned to her plate. The technique could also improve the baked beans.

On the day of my first wedding, I remember my bridesmaid Deirdre Hobbs commenting "-and there is not one cell in my body now which bears any trace of Cheese Fish". I didn't think it too bad, but Deirdre loathed it!

In those days, I don't remember we were ever served chicken, which would now be the economy meal.

I have produced Thames Mud and Barges, but as a rich chocolate mousse with a buttery shortbread finger!

Does anyone remember the Food Strike of 1970, when a mass protest about the monotony and predictability of the food was responded to with a cheap tomato ketchup and a brown sauce "manufactured in Oswaldtwistle"?
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englishangel
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Post by englishangel »

The food strike is remembered with great affection in several places on the forum particularly by Barbara who I believe 'came out'as one of the instigators.

We also started getting Monday mince with curry powder and sultanas.
Last edited by englishangel on Sat Oct 21, 2006 11:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Jude »

all sounds pretty horrible if you ask me..... and I thought we had a rough time food wise! Scooping off the fat from the top of the "meat of the day" and putting it in the slops bin (That job of scraping plates into that bin was enough to make anyone heave!)

We had boiled eggs about twice a term - only on a Sunday and I think it went by house.. hence only about twice a term - I have to say though Thames mud n barges was a fav... as was the watered down "yoghurt" which suddenly appeared one morning... I can't pin down what year that arrived, but it was poured into plastic "beakers" and drank - far too runny to eat with a spoon!
:oops:
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts.
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Post by Scone Lover »

And you girls lived throught that?

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