GRACE

[AMP]

In my time, 1978-85, the 'academic' Button Grecians did read Grace, but thinking back less frequently than Monitors. There never seemed to be any particular order to it, and it should be noted that anyone getting their buttons and reading grace for the first time was always greeted with a cheer, an indication that the ethos of the school amongst the pupils was to recognise and appreciate achievement (even if it was more accurately a prediction of future achievement).

There was of course the Court Room, the small dining room at the side of the Dining Hall, where in my time, two junior houses were shoved for iirc a term at a time, and where junior house prefects read Grace. I didn't make an orator out of me, but I think it is better to start with the rough diamonds and polish them than look only for rubies.

I am of a similar vintage and agree that it was not uncommon for academic buttons who weren't monitors to read Grace.
However the first occasion for any Button Grecian was very much a litmus test of popularity and occasionally it would be followed by boos and hisses once the final gavel had come down.
Not much Killer Fry, JMC or Hammerhead could do about that and they knew it.

[AMP]

After the 1950s CH Horsham was clearly democratised (or as we conservative traditionalists would say, the high standards for being a Button Grecian were lowered). The categories mentioned by Spoonbill

school monitors: boys who either excelled at sport or who were good all-rounders (... nevertheless reasonably handsome and easily moulded into the right sort of stereotype by the school)... the Senior Server ... Band Captain may also have qualified for Buttons

certainly did not automatically receive Buttons twenty years before. (There was no Senior Server in those days.) Even School Monitors and/or House Captains did not get their Buttons unless they were earned for academic prowess. But such unbuttoned School and House Captains were not numerous. I think that one such was PR Batts of Barnes A. He wished to attend Sandhurst, not a university. There were others. As Fitzsadou implies there was,

general lessening of standards in very many fields,

I agree.

Was there ever a Senior Grecian who did not have his full buttons?
It sounds like there was much more of an academic focus in those days.
I recall the pre requisite for School Monitors who therefore automatically received their buttons being first and foremost a level of maturity, leadership and popularity.
Academic prowess was certainly not a pre requisite.
Neither sport or any other discipline for that matter. But if you were good at sport particularly Rugby, then it probably did help considerably.
I can't really remember what they did apart from tell you to be quiet before Chapel started.
They also collected us and took us to the old boy, miserable as sin who claimed to be a barber. There he would allow his apprentices to have a go. They always drew blood from one ear due to their clumsy use of those clippers.

[Phil]

As AMP wrote yesterday,

It sounds like there was much more of an academic focus in those days.

This was so in the second decade after the War. Several other elderly contributors have already made this point. (In one year in the early 1950s a dozen Oxbridge scholarships were won. Has this number ever been equalled? I don’t think so.)

Also in those days school monitors were the house captains (whether they had buttons or not) and very rarely one or two additional deserving boys. (I can think of one pair of twins in the same house who were house captain and second monitor. Both of them won Oxbridge scholarships and were school monitors in their last year.)

AMP asks further,

Was there ever a Senior Grecian who did not have his full buttons?

I don’t know and I doubt it very much. But one SG came very, very close to that situation early in the 50’s decade. As usual the name of the new SG was announced to the School at the end of the summer term by the headmaster Flecker. (He was never called a head “teacher”.) The new SG was one Mackenzie, who was a nice fellow and he filled the position well. He had received his buttons a very short while before the announcement. We were mystified. He was clearly not ‘academic’ and I don’t think he went to a university. It was naturally presumed that he received his buttons just so he could occupy the post. Uniquely in those days, he was a SG who played neither rugby nor cricket. Do current SGs usually play one of these games for a first team? However Mackenzie was appointed Captain of Swimming for his last year. At the time it was supposed that there was some personal reason for his becoming Senior Grecian. Many thought he was an undeclared relative of Flecker. Does any reader know more about this?

[alterblau]

Mr Ed has written

In my time, 1978-85, the 'academic' Button Grecians did read Grace

This was also true when I was at CH, a couple of decades before Mr Ed. He also wrote

anyone getting their buttons and reading grace for the first time was always greeted with a cheer,

In my experience there was always decorum then for grace, except a massive cheer after the last breakfast grace of the summer term. The Housey Special (a train for London Bridge only for CH pupils) left at about 9am and the school was empty before mid day.

[loringa]

As AMP wrote yesterday,

It sounds like there was much more of an academic focus in those days.

This was so in the second decade after the War. Several other elderly contributors have already made this point. (In one year in the early 1950s a dozen Oxbridge scholarships were won. Has this number ever been equalled? I don’t think so.)

Soon after I arrived in 1973, I recall the Headmaster (then) Mr Newsome telling us at some big-school assembly that the previous (?) batch of Grecians had achieved 12 Oxbridge awards. No doubt some of them were exhibitions rather than scholarships but clearly standards had been maintained.

As for who received their buttons, it was principally the school monitors with just a few receiving academic buttons. The band captain most certainly did not, or at least did not wear that strange coat with buttons all up and down the sleeves, and I had no idea that the senior server did; quite frankly, I had no idea who the senior server even was. As far as I know when I departed there was no expectation that school monitors would or should proceed to university. I have absolutely no idea how many of my year group went to university but of those that I know did not, there was at least one of the house captains.

[Florida Blue]

Mr Ed has written



The Housey Special (a train for London Bridge only for CH pupils) left at about 9am and the school was empty before mid day.

In my day the Housey Special went to Victoria

[Ajarn Philip]

Consciously or unconsciously (it was never discussed AFAIR), some Grecians in my time obviously felt it to be 'uncool' to read Grace too clearly, resulting in something of a rushed mumble, though I don't remember Killer ever telling anyone to read it again. As a natural performer I couldn't bring myself to do this, though I managed not to turn it into an oration...

(EDIT: Sadly, I don't remember ever being cheered! )

[sejintenej]

Mr Ed has written



The Housey Special (a train for London Bridge only for CH pupils) left at about 9am and the school was empty before mid day.

In my day the Housey Special went to Victoria

My early days like 1952-3 it went to Victoria and from there I then had to get across London to Paddington (I was 9 and ten). Later on and until they closed the line I took the train to Reading (?) and changed there
For the St Matthews Day parade we went to London Bridge

[AMP]

Mr Ed has written



The Housey Special (a train for London Bridge only for CH pupils) left at about 9am and the school was empty before mid day.

In my day the Housey Special went to Victoria

My early days like 1952-3 it went to Victoria and from there I then had to get across London to Paddington (I was 9 and ten). Later on and until they closed the line I took the train to Reading (?) and changed there
For the St Matthews Day parade we went to London Bridge

Always a slam door train to Victoria in my day and always Holborn Viaduct on St Matthew's Day.
One Saturday night at Victoria I did ask the Guard if he would mind stopping the train at CH and he kindly obliged.
I recall a contemporary who was a Chemistry Button and had a proclivity for keeping nitroglycerine in his study, actually jumping from the train as it passed through CH.

[Ajarn Philip]

I recall a contemporary who was a Chemistry Button and had a proclivity for keeping nitroglycerine in his study, actually jumping from the train as it passed through CH.

Tom Cruise is an Old Blue? He kept that quiet!

[AMP]

As AMP wrote yesterday,

It sounds like there was much more of an academic focus in those days.

This was so in the second decade after the War. Several other elderly contributors have already made this point. (In one year in the early 1950s a dozen Oxbridge scholarships were won. Has this number ever been equalled? I don’t think so.)

Soon after I arrived in 1973, I recall the Headmaster (then) Mr Newsome telling us at some big-school assembly that the previous (?) batch of Grecians had achieved 12 Oxbridge awards. No doubt some of them were exhibitions rather than scholarships but clearly standards had been maintained.

12 was about the average I remember but I couln't tell you how those places were classified. And there were usually several who had failed to win an offer but were none the less Oxbridge material and gained top grades anyway.
7th Term Oxbridge had fizzled out by about 1985.
I recall one Grecian who returned in September (for Old Blues Day?) and had done very well, exceeding his predictions and decided to take a year off and apply to Oxford or Cambridge.
His twin brother was fluent in esperanto and had a curious talent which might be the envy of many men, but about which it would probably be inappropriate to comment further.

[AMP]

I recall a contemporary who was a Chemistry Button and had a proclivity for keeping nitroglycerine in his study, actually jumping from the train as it passed through CH.

Tom Cruise is an Old Blue? He kept that quiet!

And in full uniform!
The coat probably acted as a parachute.

[Alex]

I never knew the Court Room was where Junior Houses ate, for Mr Ed wrote,

There was of course the Court Room, the small dining room at the side of the Dining Hall, where in my time, two junior houses were shoved

This is surprising, for surely it would be more convenient to have everyone together in the main Dining Hall. Total numbers of pupils must have been the same when Junior Houses existed, so it could not be a requirement for more eating space. To my knowledge soon after WW2 the Court Room was never an auxiliary dining hall and was rarely used. In its vestibule the barber barbered, although later he had a different room near to the Tuck Shop. But the Court Room did host the weekly Grecians’ ballroom dancing classes, receptions for OBs on OB’ Day and private receptions for staff members, such as a wedding reception.

[Ajarn Philip]

... the weekly Grecians’ ballroom dancing classes,

Sadly gone by the 70s, how useful they would have been to me in later life!

[Oliver]

The Grecians’ ballroom dancing classes ended because Mr DCF Chaundy, who initiated and taught them (a teacher of physics, very pleasant chap and junior housemaster in Barnes A) left CH for a post at Malvern College. He was a most enthusiastic folk dancer and successfully taught ballroom and Morris dancing at CH. Lest anyone wonder, after leaving CH he married and had at least one child.