Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

God rest his soul, he did so much for the school! Our year even made a verb out of his name "Kemp-it" : To walk with extreme speed!!
Ah he taught me Latin for many years, and he was a fab teacher, always had an inuendo, will never forget his soft voice, or how his eyebrows used to cross when he was angry! Haha.... god bless x

aahhh...so thats where kemp-it came from...used it at uni once and everyone was like...uuhhh?

never knew him but his death came as a shock..

he he he I still use that verb, however one of my friends at uni is a Mr Kemp himself... gtes kinda baffed when I say... "come on lets kemp-it!"

Nice idea by the way to set up this topic. I was there in the chapel service when his death was announced, I think it was Sunday, 2nd May, 2004. God, almost a year...
It was a strangely eventful chapel service. I remember someone in the choir doing something weird, either falling over, or singing the wrong words really loudly.
Then came the end of the service, and everyone triggered fairly quickly that something was wrong, because the choir didn't move, and Mr. Mitra went up to the lecturn, and then the thought occured to me that someone must have died. Lots of people thought it was a different teacher at first, because this particular member of staff plays a prominent role in chapel services, and was not there during this service. But it was kind of unreal for the first 5 seconds or so, because no-one really wanted to believe it, and I guess a considerable amount of pupils hadn't experienced a death before...
But it was really nice that so many old blues and old teachers came to his funeral service, even though 'Jed' said Mr. Kemp would've hated it. I suppose at least he doesn't leave behind a wife and children. I can actually remember saying good morning to him in breakfast on the Saturday morning of his death, and he said good morning back to me. And his last words to a large group of pupils were 'er, no,' because he was reffing a softball match, and that was his decision of the last ball of the game.
What disappointed me was that the school reminded everyone in early November that it was 6 months after his death, when we'd gotten over it by then, and to be honest, even if it may be disrespectful, many people would have preferred not to be reminded of this, because it put the school in that eerie sombre mood in which it was immediately after his death.
Sorry for the waffle

I remember Dad phoning me up nearly in tears - horrible really.

From what I heard JDS was told of Clive's death just before he went into chapel to do his last sermon - he chose to go on - even though his sermon was mostly about a close friend who had just died...

What a great man.... Some of my fondest memories are of the expeditions he led with the Venture Scouts, particularly when we went to Austria. Amazing. Hard to put the feelings into words really.

Aaah ol' "keyhole" Kemp!

Thats a real shame... I was in Maine B and he used to hide outside the Dorm door to catch us talking!

A generally nice, softly mannered chap who most people liked.

Saddening news.

I used to hate his double latin classes......

However, he was a good teacher and never did me any harm while I was there. I did always want to steal his miniatures, but was alwasy scared too as I am guessing h probably had a lis of them somewhere!

RIP.

He was my Tutor and mentor for 4 of my most turbulent years of my life. And gave me the confidence to find myself and discover what it was I constantly was struggling against right up until the day I left CH.

Really sad to hear this - I suppose every one gets older. like Ash, I remember him well from Maine B years, him listening through keyholes, taost in his study etc.

I also remember Tim Wilson and the table-tennis bat incident.

He taught me latin also and is responsible for getting me through a number of O' levels after the school had apparently given up on me (or so I found out after I left - with 9 O's and 3 A's). I still remember too much these days.

Funniest was immediately after the merger of the two schools, watching his consternation at a room full of 12 (16?) girls and 4 boys - it seemed like he would have ignored the girls if he could.....

Oh my good god... I remember the Tim "Wilsard" Wilson table tennis bat incident...

Okay so you both remember the table tennis incident, I don't suppose you would care to elaborate?