Abolition of Chapel Caps

[Katharine]

All the time I was at school we had to wear our caps EVERY time we entered the chapel, whether it was to dust the pews, show visitors around or for a service. When we learnt St Paul's views of women covering their heads we assumed this was the reason, after all DR was his number 1 fan!

In reading Half to Remember I read 'One of the smaller results of the four term year was the abolition of caps. When we returned to school in August and no-one in the town was wearing a hat, I did not see why the girls should have to look old-fashioned wearing them.'

Did this mean that all hats and caps were abolished in one fell swoop and you went bare-headed in chapel? - or were they kept just for chapel and you did not have to wear them when out in Hertford? I was there for the first two years of the 4 term year and we had no inkling that it was going to happen.

One immediate result of the 4 term year was an increase in Oxbridge places, my year and the year above me had record numbers getting in, I don't know whether that lasted, or whether we were just super bright!!!

[englishangel]

Hats were abolished at the end of the summer term 1968 I think.

I thought it was a real shame, I am still a hat wearer as I have said on another thread.

[englishangel]

All the time I was at school we had to wear our caps EVERY time we entered the chapel, whether it was to dust the pews, show visitors around or for a service. When we learnt St Paul's views of women covering their heads we assumed this was the reason, after all DR was his number 1 fan!

In reading Half to Remember I read 'One of the smaller results of the four term year was the abolition of caps. When we returned to school in August and no-one in the town was wearing a hat, I did not see why the girls should have to look old-fashioned wearing them.'

Did this mean that all hats and caps were abolished in one fell swoop and you went bare-headed in chapel? - or were they kept just for chapel and you did not have to wear them when out in Hertford? I was there for the first two years of the 4 term year and we had no inkling that it was going to happen.

One immediate result of the 4 term year was an increase in Oxbridge places, my year and the year above me had record numbers getting in, I don't know whether that lasted, or whether we were just super bright!!!

What were you doing dusting the pews? 2s dealt with the chapel. One of my duties at some time was to change all the hangings, Bible book marks etc, according to the church calendar. I was always forgetting so I would be flying down to the chapel in a most unladylike manner to change the grren topurple or the white to red and diving out of the north door as the first house came in at the west door.

[Katharine]

What were you doing dusting the pews? 2s dealt with the chapel.

Chapel Dusting went round the houses, each house did it one week in six. I was chapel girl for 6s which was preparing for the Sunday Communion, and Head Chapel Girl too in U VI. I don't remember 2s having special responsibilities - how quickly some things change!

[englishangel]

Ah, that was because 1's and 5's were junior houses, in 1965 all the houses became the same.

[Jude]

is that why people in 5's got bullied the most i wonder? if it was a Junior house, then became a mixed no wonder we have different views of the insides....

One BIG thing I HATED was thankfully fone after I had left (or was being done in my last year - I can't remember) but FIRE doors were being put up on the landings - they were the most ugly contraptions out, they made each floor dim as the light from the stairs windows was blocked out by the fire doors and they were very very heavy to open...

Another sad time for Hertford....