GRACE

Anything that doesn't fit anywhere else, but that's still CH related.

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Katharine
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Re: GRACE

Post by Katharine »

scrub wrote: Wed Jul 08, 2020 4:45 pm I'm impressed anyone can remember that much of them!
I fairly sure I couldn't have repeated them while I was there and my only memories of it now are trying not to get caught messing around during, and the occasional time the lunch master(?)/monitor/the one with the gavel, made the Grecian read it again because people weren't paying attention, were still eating, or otherwise screwing around.
I don’t remember anyone being asked to repeat it in my time at Hertford.

Did you have any meals in your house? We used to have Sunday breakfast and tea every day in the house, then Grace was said by everyone in turn. In my house starting with the seniors, by the time it reached the new girls they were expected to have learnt it by heart.
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
scrub
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Re: GRACE

Post by scrub »

Unless you were cooking for yourself, or had to bring something back from breakfast/tea for the older kids, the only in-house meals I remember were Sunday breakfasts once (or twice) a year in the junior house where the kitchen dropped off croissants, yogurt, bread, and jam the night before, and occasionally, Jim (PeA housemaster) and Sue had a BBQ in their garden, but can't remember if that was the whole house or just Grecians/Deps.

I remember grace having to be re-said a few times, usually preceded by Boomer's "GRACE AGAIN PLEASE!!!". The other lunch master people were quieter and less abrupt when asking for it to be repeated.
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Katharine
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Re: GRACE

Post by Katharine »

Thanks, rather different from us then. Our Sunday breakfast was far less interesting, it was the one day of the week we had rice crispiest! I presume followed by bread and marmalade but I can’t really remember.

Sunday tea was a lump of cheese, bread and butter and CAKE! The cheese and cake were meticulously shared out by the Mons. You could have some of your own jam at tea on Saturday and Sunday.
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
seajayuu
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Re: GRACE

Post by seajayuu »

Come on Katharine, you must remember the thinnest possible slice of ham for Sunday breakfast! We never did figure out why there was always a green sheen to it.
Katharine
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Re: GRACE

Post by Katharine »

Sorry Chrissie, even with your prompt it doesn’t ring bells. I do remember those lucky enough to have fruit slicing bananas ove the cereal. I was very rarely given any, although a lot of sharing went on.
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
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Spoonbill
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Re: GRACE

Post by Spoonbill »

When D H Newsome was headmaster at Horsham, there was an occasion when a Button Grecian read grace at the end of the meal and deliberately said

So season and refresh our souls
with thy heavenly spirit,
that we may live to thy honour and Grolly


- one of Newsome's nicknames. Killer Fry (in his capacity as Hall Warden) yelled at the Button Grecian to start again from the beginning, which he did, this time with no funny business.

I think I also dimly remember the afore-mentioned occasion on which a Button Grecian mouthed the words to the grace while someone else spoke them.

Wasn't Bernard Levin's final-day expulsion something to do with misbehaviour whilst reading grace? Or is that just a myth?
keibat
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Re: GRACE

Post by keibat »

I recall one occasion when a Jewish Grecian (the name escapes me) modulated the closing formula to: "Through Jesus Christ your Lord" – and was reprimanded, though perhaps not punished more concretely. Frankly – as a practising Christian both then and now – I think this was an honest and rather smart solution. Nowadays there must surely be Muslim Grecians, and possibly other faiths as well ... and I would expect the school to show more respect to non-Christians than was the case half a century ago.
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LongGone
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Re: GRACE

Post by LongGone »

seajayuu wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:00 am Come on Katharine, you must remember the thinnest possible slice of ham for Sunday breakfast! We never did figure out why there was always a green sheen to it.
Clearly the slices were so thin that they exhibited ‘thin film interference’ just like the rainbow patters seen on oil films. :D
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If an egg falls on a stone: alas for the egg
rockfreak
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Re: GRACE

Post by rockfreak »

keibat wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:41 pm I recall one occasion when a Jewish Grecian (the name escapes me) modulated the closing formula to: "Through Jesus Christ your Lord" – and was reprimanded, though perhaps not punished more concretely. Frankly – as a practising Christian both then and now – I think this was an honest and rather smart solution. Nowadays there must surely be Muslim Grecians, and possibly other faiths as well ... and I would expect the school to show more respect to non-Christians than was the case half a century ago.

You've spent most of a lifetime being a practising Christian, keibat. Shouldn't you have perfected it by now? OK I'm being facetious but whenever I hear of practising Christians or committed Christians I usually assume that they are evangelical loonies (sometimes the supporters of Donald Trump) who take dogma literally and expect the Rapture any time soon. As opposed to the rather woolly and well-meaning adherents to the broad-church CofE that we grew up with in the 1950s. Although I have to say that I knew a few people then who believed quite literally in the bible stories. Explain your own position.
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Mid A 15
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Re: GRACE

Post by Mid A 15 »

rockfreak wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 8:55 pm
keibat wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:41 pm I recall one occasion when a Jewish Grecian (the name escapes me) modulated the closing formula to: "Through Jesus Christ your Lord" – and was reprimanded, though perhaps not punished more concretely. Frankly – as a practising Christian both then and now – I think this was an honest and rather smart solution. Nowadays there must surely be Muslim Grecians, and possibly other faiths as well ... and I would expect the school to show more respect to non-Christians than was the case half a century ago.

You've spent most of a lifetime being a practising Christian, keibat. Shouldn't you have perfected it by now? OK I'm being facetious but whenever I hear of practising Christians or committed Christians I usually assume that they are evangelical loonies (sometimes the supporters of Donald Trump) who take dogma literally and expect the Rapture any time soon. As opposed to the rather woolly and well-meaning adherents to the broad-church CofE that we grew up with in the 1950s. Although I have to say that I knew a few people then who believed quite literally in the bible stories. Explain your own position.
kiebat is more than capable of answering for himself should he so choose.

However, as an aside, I would be interested to know if you would ask a poster professing his or herself to be a 'practising Muslim' the same question or is it only Christianity that is under scrutiny?
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rockfreak
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Re: GRACE

Post by rockfreak »

No, I'm quite happy to ask Muslims whether they truly believe they will accede in after life to a perfumed garden full of fig trees and naked virgins. It interests me why people believe certain things without proof and it's always made more sense to me that dogma should be seen metaphorically - the fancy wrapping that comes with religion if you like. Our traditions, laws and freedoms in this country derive not from faith religion but from the European secular Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. That includes the freedom and curiosity of mind to ask awkward questions of others and to hope that they might be able to engage.
Avon
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Re: GRACE

Post by Avon »

rockfreak wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 8:55 pm Explain your own position.
A surprising use of the imperative from someone who seldom enters a second phase of discussion about their own ‘position’.
Jabod2
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Re: GRACE

Post by Jabod2 »

Katharine wrote: Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:01 pm Give us thankful hearts O Lord God
I think it was Roger Hallam who started 'Give us hearty thanks' and was pulled up by Pongo...
Ajarn Philip
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Re: GRACE

Post by Ajarn Philip »

Roger Allam?
MrEd
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Re: GRACE

Post by MrEd »

I remember a Sikh chap in my year, who I shall not name in the age of traceability as he had quite a distinctive name and he got a lot of stick whilst at CH, although he was generally liked and respected for his intellect, when he got his buttons once in place of the grace pronounced something that was presumably a Sikh blessing in presumably Punjabi and Killer Fry (who despite his name was quite into 'One World' thinking) simply knocked his gavel at the end and nothing was said about it (AFAIK) and he wasn't asked to repeat it. This would have been 1984/1985. More than 35 years ago as I left CH 35 years ago today.
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