New Forum Section - Hertford Memories

[englishangel]

Urban Myth 101 though I heard it from a friend who was working in Casualty at the time.

Ambulance rolls up with a couple, he has toothmarks and lacerations to his penis and she has lacerations and other damage to her head.

They had been drinking and were getting down and dirty. She started fellating him and had an epileptic fit. To get her off he belted her over the head with a beer bottle. Hence the damage to both.

One I know is true 'cos I was there.

On the labour ward a young girl was brought from casualty. Her boyfriend had been using a can of hairspray as a sex aid. (lid first) she had clamped down around it and the cap had come off, inside , and of course wouldn't come out. She had to be (lightly) anaestheised and said cap was "delivered" by forceps.

How she explained it to her parents when they came to collect her I don't know, but we were in stitches.

[Angela Woodford]

Oh Mary! Mary!

I'm going to have some strong coffee.

Munch

[Mid A 15]

Oh Mary! Mary!

I'm going to have some strong coffee.

Munch

I dread to think what JR will make of all this!

[Katharine]

And what about the one you dumped, Katharine?

Sorry I've tried to erase the painful memories over the years suffice it to say that I still find it difficult to trust anyone called Colin! (hope there aren't any on this forum!!! )
There should be happy memories from the first flush but can't drag them out of the recesses of the brain.

[Angela Woodford]

Must have been a Love Rat, Katharine!

We will not sigh at his memory! Huh!

Munch XXX

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Urban Myth 101 though I heard it from a friend who was working in Casualty at the time.

Ambulance rolls up with a couple, he has toothmarks and lacerations to his penis and she has lacerations and other damage to her head.

They had been drinking and were getting down and dirty. She started fellating him and had an epileptic fit. To get her off he belted her over the head with a beer bottle. Hence the damage to both.

In the King's version the beer bottle is replaced by a cast iron frying pan grabbed from the draining board.

In response to Munch - one of the several reasons I am glad that I left CH at the end of UV and spent two years at day school before heading off to Uni, is that I had two years to re-establish a normal relationship with the outside world and its inhabitants. I'm not sure how I would have coped if I had gone directly from CH to the sexdrugsandrockandroll scene of Leeds.

Happy Days

[englishangel]

I went straight from CH to Aston, an engineering University with one woman to every 7 men in those days. And most of the women were local and went home every night.

I thought, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

[J.R.]

I know a female cousin of mine was present as duty sister in a certain London casualty department, when a man bought his male friend in, in absolute agony, doubled up on the trolley. Firsts views were a massive kidney stone, until my cousin did the rounds with a stethoscope, only to be confronted with a deep steady buzzing noise from the lower abdomen.

I'll leave the rest to your fertile imaginations........

Needless to say, this case DID make it into the 'Lancet'

[Angela Woodford]

Miss Rutherford taught French and German from 1966 on. There was no Miss Riddiford as far as I remember in 1972, possibly she came later.

I'm sorry to produce this non sequitur when we were discussing the more dubious conditions to be brought into A & E! I apologise, JR! But today I was thinking of Miss Riddiford, and wondered if anyone else had mentioned her. I looked back to past postings, and here she is!

Miss Riddiford arrived as a French and German Mistress as we began in the LV1. I was prepared to like her, as she had been teaching in the land of my birth - at a school called Clapham County (Clapham Cowshed). A largish woman of medium height with salt and pepper cauliflower perm, she taught us the beginnings of 'A' level French, and I simply can't remember which set books they were - memorable, n'est-ce pas? She dressed in hearty tweeds and had a tremendous booming laugh.

It so happened that by this stage we were allowed out in twos to shop in Hertford. I had a shopping basket and mostly encountered Miss Riddiford in town as I was coming out of that terrific bow-fronted chocolate shop. "Encore, le panier!!!" she would bellow, and I would agree weakly that yes, I was carrying the basket again. But, despite this embarassment, I liked her.

We were obliged in the UV1 to invite, in pairs, a mistress to coffee in the evening, from time to time. My friend Carolynn (superstar Head Girl) and I thought it would be fun to ask Miss Riddiford because she would be bound to boom with laughter for a while and then it would be over. We knew by then that Miss Riddiford had a girlfriend, so we issued the RSVP invitation to them both. The invitation was accepted at once!

The girlfriend was called Miss Munt. We ushered them into 1s Study, took their coats and sat them down. Miss Munt was like the flip side of Miss Riddiford. The tweeds were prettier, the nose was well powdered, and instead of booming, she had a little tinkling laugh. If she began a sentence, Miss Riddiford finished it off for her - boom!

I hurried to boil the milk and water to pour onto the powdered Maxwell House in the stained melamine mugs.

But as I tottered back into the Study, I realised that the powerful gaze of Miss Riddiford was fixed, like the headlights of a great lorry, on Carolynn. Miss Munt, anxious to please, was doing just the same. I realised that Miss Riddiford had developed the most tremendous crush on our multi-talented Head Girl. No wonder she had RSVP'd with such alacrity.

It was a dreadful evening, fraught with flattery. The two ladies were so utterly smitten with Carolynn - but she, being essentially a modest person, seemed not to notice.

Boom boom! Tinkle tinkle! Several times I boiled more milk and water to refill the melamine mugs, and sat quietly, planning my escape. At 2100hrs, I leaped to my feet, regretted my early departure, said that 6s had imposed a curfew on its inhabitants, and fled. Mean of me.

Carolynn threw me a look of reproach as I disappeared.

I still feel guilty about this, but so far, whenever I've seen Carolynn again we seem to reminisce as far as 1967; but should we come to discuss four years further on into 1971, I do hope she's forgotten about that night!

Love, Munch

[englishangel]

My memory has obviously gone completely. I don't remember Miss Riddiford at all, and I did French for O Level. The 2 French teachers were Miss Rutherford and a feller, married and quite dapper whose name escapes me.

I know Carolyn was in 1s but surely she was in the Flat in the Upper sixth?

[Alexandra Thrift]

Miss Riddiford was quite friendly and nice as far as I remember.

She was a large lady and her thick, grey hair was dyed a mauvish colour.

We used to call her " The Purple Headed Mountain" ( as in "All Things Bright and Beautiful" ).

Carolyn was, and still I'm sure, a wonderfully kind and talented person. Fab. Head Girl.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Hi Everyone

Did Miss Riddiford take over from a younger, French Canadian, whose name escapes me, just before we took O Levels (1970)?

I don't remember the name, but do recall someone who fits Munch's description.

[Angela Woodford]

This is weird. I don't remember any other French teachers - no dapper male, no French Canadian. We'd had Miss Mercer until 'O' level. She was drafted in to teach us from the U1V onwards, because we'd had an elegant lady called Mrs Drake in the L1V with whom we'd made very little progress, and Miss Mercer was required to make up lost ground!

Then in the V1 Form Rutherford-and-Riddiford. Alex, now I do remember a purple rinse!

Mary you are absolutely right, Carolynn was a Flat-Dweller. I can only think that we were in 1's Study because the coffee evening was a thing with me, and I wouldn't have been allowed up there. Or else someone else was operating a similar evening in the flat?

Any one remember the incredibly clever Eileen Downing, fluent in both French and German from childhood?

The only native-speaking language teacher we had was Miss Nutto von Stettin for German (only the 'B' forms could do German). The poor woman had a flat on the bottom floor of the music school! All day long, a cacophony of practice noise! I really felt for her.

Love, Munch

[icomefromalanddownunder]

This is weird. I don't remember any other French teachers - no dapper male, no French Canadian. We'd had Miss Mercer until 'O' level. She was drafted in to teach us from the U1V onwards, because we'd had an elegant lady called Mrs Drake in the L1V with whom we'd made very little progress, and Miss Mercer was required to make up lost ground!

Love, Munch

Hi Munch

I'll try to remember to consult my reports when I get home, in order to uncover staff names.

I'm visualising a young, tallish, red haired french canadian, who would regularly correct herself after saying 'tyre' instead of 'pneu' and such like. In my memories she left not too long before we sat O Levels, to be replaced by a more mature personage whose lessons I found far less fun.

I'm busily trying to visualise staff - Mrs Betterton, Mrs Thomas, Betty J, Miss Wilson, Chemi T, Miss Mercer, the Biology Teacher who features in the Hertford Mercury photo taken in the lab, Mrs Fiddaman, Miss Taverner, Deaconess Ridsdale, Physics Teacher ?, Miss Morrison, Queenie (eminently unforgettable) and that woman whose name will not cross my lips (or finger tips) who taught needlework.

I was beginning to wonder whether I was confusing the red headed French Canadian with teachers at St Martin's, but I didn't take French there.

Mary? Liz? Alex?

[englishangel]

Mrs Drake was Swiss AFAIR replaced in summer by the auburn haired French Canadian wo was either Miss Smith and married to become Mrs Brown, or vice versa. but I still can't remember Miss Riddiford.

The physics teacher was a small dark woman who was incredibly bright and had a husband who was similarly clever. She was doinf her Masters in Astrophysics while we were doing our A levels and if you were not a natural phyicist (step forward Mary Mc) her classes were ideal for a snooze. (she also broke her foot when it slipped off the accelerator about a month before A levels.)

I got an O for my exam and a B for my practical A Level but funnily enough my long term memory is ok (or I learned in my sleep) because I could do my son's A level physics paper with no trouble, and I don't think it was 'dumbed down'.