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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....
Jude wrote:ARGhhhhhhhhh Kerren - those dreadful flowery nightdresses - they were so revolting! and all our wash things had to be kept in a circular plastic wash basket under our beds, including your knickers etc.... On the days the cleaners came in to "polish" the dorm floor we had to put them in the CENTRE of our beds.....
We still had those nighties when I was there! I'd forgotten about the wash baskets!
1 flannel per week (it stank after a night on the side of the basket as it never dried out!!)
2 hand towels - I still have mine upstairs - 1 per WEEK the other kept in the laundry room
A wash kit to contain a washbag, toopaste (if possible) a toothbrush, soap and shampoo.
Ugh the thoughts are turning my stomach!!!
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
Jude wrote:2 hand towels - I still have mine upstairs -
I don't remember exactly what towels etc we had. Just glad I wasn't on laundry room duties every Sunday - especially on the Sundays we got clean sheets!
Last edited by Vonny on Thu Sep 14, 2006 10:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jude wrote:All that horsehair from teh matresses got right up your nose!
Glad you said "nose" there!
We one couldn't do a JR and lower the tone now could one???
There wasn't much about clean things at Hertford - Do you remember the VIM we had to use to clean the "tide makes" on the baths? Usually BEFORE we got in - not surprising as showers hadn't made it up that far north in those days... it left the bottom of the bath (guys you will just have to imagine this) all gritty, no matter how many times you tried to wash it all down... And there was never enough hot water and the baths being enamel lost their heat very quickly - 3 baths and 5 handbasins between 18 juniors on the 1st floor - H&S would have a nightmare these days. We only had 2 loo's as well.... unless you wanted to risk your life by going downstairs to the outside ones... there were 4 there!!
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
Yes - we had HORSEHAIR matressess - how did we know - well the mattress cover (blue and white stripes - like a convict!) got thin after the years of girls trying to get comfy, and some leaked..... so we asked what it was.....
Never really slept well there!
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
Jude wrote:All that horsehair from teh matresses got right up your nose!
Glad you said "nose" there!
We one couldn't do a JR and lower the tone now could one???
There wasn't much about clean things at Hertford - Do you remember the VIM we had to use to clean the "tide makes" on the baths? Usually BEFORE we got in - not surprising as showers hadn't made it up that far north in those days... it left the bottom of the bath (guys you will just have to imagine this) all gritty, no matter how many times you tried to wash it all down... And there was never enough hot water and the baths being enamel lost their heat very quickly - 3 baths and 5 handbasins between 18 juniors on the 1st floor - H&S would have a nightmare these days. We only had 2 loo's as well.... unless you wanted to risk your life by going downstairs to the outside ones... there were 4 there!!
The memories are flooding back tonight! The bath we had in 2's was vile - it had a massive rust patch inside It was one of those old fashioned ones with legs and there was a flimsy curtain to draw around it.
Well Axsherly... when I was in the Upper VI and a Monitress in 2's, I abandoned the flowery cotton wincyette nightdresses. I had a (wow!) pink flimsy brinylon nightie, which I could rinse out every now and again and dry on a radiator ready to wear again the next night. When it came to the days for the regulation nightdresses to go away to be washed, I used to do the dusting with mine, so it sort of looked used.
Two million years later (fairly recently) I owned up to this to DR West (Headmistress in our time who now is in a Nursing Home, aged 94). She said, phlegmatically 'Oh, how UNHYGIENIC'.
Oh dear!
yep - and those flimsy curtains were ALWAYS too SMALL and being knocked or opened deliberately by other girls...
I had a problem with greasy hair - and only being allowed to wash it 2x a week made it a major problem ( yes wee ALL used DRY shampoo or talc to make it look better) and got horribly teased that I could fry chiops with th grease in my hair - that hurt then - strangely it still does..
Daughter just said things haven't moved on that much from when she was a boarder - not at CH but at prep school - 5 years ago!
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
When I was first there (1957) we had small iron bedsteads which were reputed to have been rejects/returned from the Crimean War. They had solid metal bedheads (often already heavily graffitied) and very thin mattresses, which were indeed made of horsehair inside a white and blue ticking cover. But later we had better and bigger beds, still iron but more like hospital beds and they had much thicker mattresses. I have to be honest, I don't recall sleepness nights - but the regime was designed to knacker us during the day so perhaps the fact that we slept through the night with no problems is more a reflection of what we did during the day than the quality of the bedding on which we slept.
I'd forgotten about the wash baskets!
