Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Thanks one and all. I think I am going to go down the lines of beginnings/births as that is what we are commemorating. I think I will be able to find quite enough to say - did I mention David Essex earlier? I can include a personal anecdote as I taught his daughter in the 80s. He was a very conscientious father and came to every parents' evening if he could. Those blue blue eyes were quite mesmerising as he concentrated on my every word; I really got the impression that nothing else mattered to him at the time. This was not true of every parent!

I did find that everyone's memories of the cold in February were correct (didn't check out later in the year) snow fell every day between 22 January and 17 March that year.

Kerren do you remember 1963 when DR made us go on walks every day because of the snow? She would put up a route and the different houses took it in turns to provide the Mons who went first and those who went last. Everyone else (?not Junior Houses?) went in small groups, quite a change from other years.

Katharine wrote:Kerren do you remember 1963 when DR made us go on walks every day because of the snow? She would put up a route and the different houses took it in turns to provide the Mons who went first and those who went last. Everyone else (?not Junior Houses?) went in small groups, quite a change from other years.

Funnily enough I read about that in Half to Remember today!

Yes I do remember... walking along paths cut through what seemed like huge snowdrifts sometimes. I often wondered who went out and cut those paths.....were they there anyway, or did someone from the school go out and do it? They were quite exciting though, thinking back - and curiously I don't remember coming back cold or chapped or anything. But we only had those leather shoes and they must have got soaked?
I must remind myself of what DRW said about it in Half to Remember.. it looks as if she planned things in a military way to ensure that we got the exercise she thought we needed!

The way we polished those shoes they must have been prety well waterproof. We moved house in the January of 1963, from a village into town. My brothers had the loft room in the new house (no central heating) and regularly woke up with frost on their counterpanes.

I htink that the February of 1947 was one of the 3 coldest February's ever!

Talking of those shoes....
Was looking at my 5 year diary today. 22nd March 1963 reads 'Had shoes condemned, got new ones.' Wow. That must have been a red letter day!