Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Great Plum wrote:On my seniors, one of my friends (who will remain nameless - but he is now an officer in the Artillery) decided to go out on the quiet room roof of Maine A through the Lav End windows. It had been snowing and he thought it would be a good idea to throw snowballs from up there...
He slipped and fell backwards through a sky light landing on a computer - amazingly he was relatively unhurt with just a few cuts...

As he is now a Gunner, presumably he landed on his head and no harm was done.

petard249 wrote:

Great Plum wrote:On my seniors, one of my friends (who will remain nameless - but he is now an officer in the Artillery) decided to go out on the quiet room roof of Maine A through the Lav End windows. It had been snowing and he thought it would be a good idea to throw snowballs from up there...
He slipped and fell backwards through a sky light landing on a computer - amazingly he was relatively unhurt with just a few cuts...

As he is now a Gunner, presumably he landed on his head and no harm was done.

Hmmm, it's debateable!

Great Plum wrote:

petard249 wrote:

Great Plum wrote:On my seniors, one of my friends (who will remain nameless - but he is now an officer in the Artillery) decided to go out on the quiet room roof of Maine A through the Lav End windows. It had been snowing and he thought it would be a good idea to throw snowballs from up there...
He slipped and fell backwards through a sky light landing on a computer - amazingly he was relatively unhurt with just a few cuts...

As he is now a Gunner, presumably he landed on his head and no harm was done.

Hmmm, it's debateable!

I actually witnessed this accident. It's frightening to think that he's now defending the realm!

"cannon fodder"

marty wrote:

Great Plum wrote:

petard249 wrote: As he is now a Gunner, presumably he landed on his head and no harm was done.

Hmmm, it's debateable!

I actually witnessed this accident. It's frightening to think that he's now defending the realm!

Wasn't there once a jingle about power-mad and barmy.....?

marty wrote:

Great Plum wrote:

petard249 wrote: As he is now a Gunner, presumably he landed on his head and no harm was done.

Hmmm, it's debateable!

I actually witnessed this accident. It's frightening to think that he's now defending the realm!

Well, he's just blowing holes into Salisbury plain at the moment!

jhopgood wrote:With the old individual iron and wooden desks, it was possible to play trains.
This involved the person at the back moving into the aisle and shuffling up to the front whilst everyone else moved back. It was normally done when the teacher left the room but was attempted once with the teacher in situ.
During the winter we took flasks of coffee into classes, and one unfortunate dropped his flask spilling all the contents and the game.
There was also a nonentity league, which I could never understand since if you were in the league, you obviously weren't a nonentity.
Most of this took place in deps and first year grecians years, if memory serves me right.
Teachers involved were Biddick, Bibby and Tom Keely, when he fell asleep.

I used to get taught by a Tom Keeley I think, who used to fall asleep. Have I got this wrong or did he teach/sleep there for a long time??? I think it was just cover for other teachers who were away.

Ruthie-Baby wrote:I used to get taught by a Tom Keeley I think, who used to fall asleep. Have I got this wrong or did he teach/sleep there for a long time??? I think it was just cover for other teachers who were away.

Tom Keely was a housemaster when I arrived, (1959) and must have been there an awful long time.
He taught Latin and maybe Greek, but I received classes from him after "O" levels when others were elsewhere and he read us Lord of the Rings.
He also appeared to have the ability to doze off at will, when he gave us other things to do.
I was never sure whether this was a sickness as I worked for someone who would also doze off unpredictably.
He had at least 3 minor traffic problems when he dozed off at traffic lights and the car behind started and shunted.
This was in Buenos Aires where drivers are not known for their patience.

that's at least 1959 to 1991. Wow.

Apparently he would fall asleep in class, the lesson would end and the pupils would creep out and then he'd wake up to be faced by a room of entirely different faces...

He was the 2nd master I think by the end...

jhopgood wrote:With the old individual iron and wooden desks, it was possible to play trains.
This involved the person at the back moving into the aisle and shuffling up to the front whilst everyone else moved back. It was normally done when the teacher left the room but was attempted once with the teacher in situ.
During the winter we took flasks of coffee into classes, and one unfortunate dropped his flask spilling all the contents and the game.
There was also a nonentity league, which I could never understand since if you were in the league, you obviously weren't a nonentity.
Most of this took place in deps and first year grecians years, if memory serves me right.
Teachers involved were Biddick, Bibby and Tom Keely, when he fell asleep.

Tom Keeley was adept at falling asleep during a lesson and sometimes during an interrogation, during which he would wear a trilby hat pulled over one eye, gangster style and smoke the fags he had confiscated from you before administering the cane with great accuracy as well as force...

Tom Keeley,

He was Housemaster of Maine A when I started. His study was packed full of a complete (I think) set of Wisdens (which he kindly used to lend me) and Penguin paperbacks.

He ran the cricket 2nd X1 when I was there and I enjoyed playing under him. I can also still hear in my head his loudly shouting "the heel! the heel!" whilst watching the 1st XV.

As others have said he was a one man security force about the School in his spare time popping up in all sorts of unexpected places!

Overall though he was a good bloke and I was sad to read in The Blue that he passed away three or four years ago.

I think merely going to the madhouse that is Christ's Hospital automatically lowers ones life expectancy.
I had a near death experience on my A level geogo trip. The rest of the group were on a hike but I had to do my coursework practical so myself and a member of staff (who shall remain nameless) headed up to the glacier noir (we were in les alps). We soon found ourselves on the morrain and were heading for a long walk to the snout of the glacier. However, my teacher decided instead we would walk down the rather long and steep morrain as a short cut. Anyway a large hunk of scree dislodged itself from beneath my foot causing a slight rockfall taking me with it. If it wasn't for my ranging pole I think I may have had an exciting plummet to my death (or a very nasty injury).

Laura M wrote:I think merely going to the madhouse that is Christ's Hospital automatically lowers ones life expectancy.
I had a near death experience on my A level geogo trip. The rest of the group were on a hike but I had to do my coursework practical so myself and a member of staff (who shall remain nameless) headed up to the glacier noir (we were in les alps). We soon found ourselves on the morrain and were heading for a long walk to the snout of the glacier. However, my teacher decided instead we would walk down the rather long and steep morrain as a short cut. Anyway a large hunk of scree dislodged itself from beneath my foot causing a slight rockfall taking me with it. If it wasn't for my ranging pole I think I may have had an exciting plummet to my death (or a very nasty injury).

That's what you get for sloping off with an (UN-NAMED) teacher !!!

Glacier ???? YEAH, RIGHT !!