Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

kerrensimmonds wrote:The crest on the bowl is more elaborate, squatter and ornate with curly stuff round the edges.

There is one of the old CCF cap badges on ebay at the moment http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... %26fvi%3D1 This is more or less the same elaborate crest.

Yes.... these CCF badges are often on eBay and it did dawn on me after I had posted that message that the crest is the same as the 'squat', ornate, 'old fashioned' one.
I THINK my bible has an ornate crest on the front. Quick....better go upstairs and have a look!
In the meantime, Singing Old Blues today agreed today that the bowl IS a kiff bowl - and my memory about it being smaller is probably false. Lets see what the Caledonians say tomorrow!

I haven't given much interest to ebay before, it seems that I had better change my mind from now onwards

I became quite deft at serving tea from the urn at breakfast - the bowls were stacked each side of the urn, the tap ran nonstop and you had to use a two handed filling technique at speed. I never ever tasted the tea! It looked like dishwater and smelled metallic from it's container. About 1970 - ish (??) we had to heave over to House on Sunday mornings an urn of coffee - new idea! It looked and smelled much the same as the tea, but thicker.

The tea-time plastic mugs were stored in the House kitchen in baskets, as was the cutlery. I can't think what Health'n'Safety would have made of those baskets. They were encrusted with "residue" especially the cutlery baskets. The best way to rinse the cutlery was to swish it up and down in the sink in its basket!

Munch

The only way I could stand our tea was with loads of sugar to drown the taste

I'm now back from the Caledonians (and I took the bowl to Singing Old Blues on Friday). I think we are closer to an identification!
a) My eBay bowl is a 'kiff bowl'- in use at the London school from about 1896 (that is the earliest date it could be, from the marking on the back). Whether or not the bowl got to Horsham or not is a different matter - most Horsham Old Blues just remember kiff bowls as being plain white. But maybe there just isn't anyone 'old enough' on the CH Forum, to remember patterned/crested bowls at Horsham!

b) My hostess in Scotland had a crested Hertford bowl! So I photographed both together (and will be looking to Ruth for yet more help........so that you on the Forum can see them). The Hertford bowl is SHALLOWER but almost the same diameter. It also has the 'crest within a buckled belt saying 'Christ's Hospital'', and not the older, squatter, more ornate crest, with no words.

When I was told that the Horsham bowls had flat tops and the Hertford ones were rounded, I think that information was correct. When you see the two together (thanks Ruth!) you will see that although the deeper bowl appears to have a rounded rim, it is actually quite flat compared to the rim of the shallower Hertford bowl.

Yes, eBay is fascinating! But we ought to have a code which says that Old Blues should not bid against Old Blues... how might we implement that....???

kerrensimmonds wrote: - most Horsham Old Blues just remember kiff bowls as being plain white. But maybe there just isn't anyone 'old enough' on the CH Forum, to remember patterned/crested bowls at Horsham!

Kerren,
They were all plain white when I was at CH in 1946. Probably the boys broke more china than the girls so the decorated ones would not have lasted long and were too expensive to replace. (That is 'if' we ever had decorated ones at Horsham?)
John.

I think the sicker still had some decorated ones - at least with the crest and a blue rim. Nothing like as fancy as Kerren's. Are there any in the museum?

You are right David, I do remember seeing them down in the sicker. That must have been the only place we had them.

Sorry it's taken me so long Kerren

the one on the right looks like a posh kiff bowl from the sicker to me. Dining Hall ones were plain white.

Hi David
Do you mean the one on the right of the picture - i.e. the smaller one? I can confirm that this one is a tea bowl from Hertford - and yes we did have these but as the patterned ones gradually broke/were phased out, they were replaced by plain white ones.

The larger bowl, on the left, is the one I won on eBay and about which there has been much discussion. I do believe it to be a kiff bowl from Horsham - or even London (given the style of the crest).

Thank you to Ruth for putting up the photo!

Wow, they are very decorated - and to think they now use mass produced plastic mugs!

yes - I mean the smaller one. This is like the ones I remember. I have never seen anything like the larger one before.

I think I'd rather have had a bowl than a bible as a leaving memento! They are both lovely, but I do like the one on the left particularly.