Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

J.N.B. Sergent went to Repton.
Did E.G. Malins go to Malvern?

by michael scuffil » Tue Aug 27, 2013 3:51 pm

Was not Mr Tod also from Marlborough? I seem to recall David Jesson-Dibley saying he was there with Louis MacNeice.
Did we have any Etonian, Harrovian or Wykehamist masters?

I don't know about masters who attended the above schools, but Ian Sutherland (classicist, I believe) left CH to teach at Harrow.

Am I not right in thinking that Basil 'Greg-Nut' Gregory arrived at the school during the war, with no university degree at all, yet remained as a teacher until the mid-1970s, teaching up to LF level only?

Do we know how he came to be employed by CH and why he wasn't serving in the military? Had he been Blightied out of a theatre of war? Or did he fail the initial Forces medical due to flat feet and/or his 200-a-day cigarette habit?

A low-brow teacher he may have been, but he was always immaculately turned out, as were the Maine A pupils in his care, like it or not, and I remember him as a reasonable if un-knowable man who took his role at CH very seriously indeed.

Chrissie Boy wrote:Am I not right in thinking that Basil 'Greg-Nut' Gregory arrived at the school during the war, with no university degree at all, yet remained as a teacher until the mid-1970s, teaching up to LF level only?

Do we know how he came to be employed by CH and why he wasn't serving in the military? Had he been Blightied out of a theatre of war? Or did he fail the initial Forces medical due to flat feet and/or his 200-a-day cigarette habit?

A low-brow teacher he may have been, but he was always immaculately turned out, as were the Maine A pupils in his care, like it or not, and I remember him as a reasonable if un-knowable man who took his role at CH very seriously indeed.

Mid A15 wrote

Not B.S.Gregory, who used to teach Latin in the Prep Houses in the early 60's, perchance ?

Chaz wrote

In September 1966 Basil Gregory succeeded THK (who decamped to Peele B) as Maine A Housemaster and remained there until his death in the mid seventies as far as I know

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He seems to have died in 1976 - from an entry in the CHassociation news archives. The wording suggests that he was still on the staff at the time of his death. According to the same source he arrived in 1949

Back in those days you didn't need to have a degree to teach. Someone else has suggested that there were two "classes" of masters - those who were not academically well qualified but were adept as housemasters and those highly qualified academics who would have been poor (or worse) as housemasters. BG is favourably commented upon as a person and I see nothing about his teaching prowess.

Gregnutt was a Prep school master who had to be accommodated elsewhere when the Prep was abolished. I wasn't in the Prep myself, so I don't know about the qualifications of most of the masters. But there was the exceptional case of Peter Austin Jones, who was a Prep master for years before moving to the Upper, where he then mostly taught Deps and Grecians, at which he excelled.

I recall Seaman once writing (I suppose in an obituary or valedictory) that he didn't think, on principle, that masters should move from one to the other, because the required vocations were different. The subject (who?) had done just this, but CMES said he was the exception that proved the rule.

I was certainly taught latin by B.S.G. in my first year (1958) in Prep. My main recollection is of his quite severe stutter, though I suppose it's not P.C. to mention such an affliction in this day and age.

A top man and a top housemaster. Knew his cricket too.

Fascinating! All these guys I had forgotten. Yes, I was taught by 'Hag' Hirst in the 3rd form (11 yr olds) and also by the rather uninspiring Mr Gerrish, who taught piano, not, as I remember, the 'cello. He was fond of speaking of his musical descent (i.e. who was taught by whom) from Beethoven. Even as an 11 year old I thought this was a load of bollocks.

... and how Mr Haslehurst got me through O-level Latin, the Lord only knows. However, the only sex education I received at CH was in his lessons - it all emerged when attempting to translate a piece about the rape of the Sabine women.

DavebytheSea wrote:... and how Mr Haslehurst got me through O-level Latin, the Lord only knows. However, the only sex education I received at CH was in his lessons - it all emerged when attempting to translate a piece about the rape of the Sabine women.

I have always had a memory problem (medically diagnosed in about 2002) but I was most upset by being required to learn word for word all about rape under the guise of the "Rape of the Lock". The absence of a female participant didn't make sense, the subject was, in those days, something one "didn't mention" in polite society and my inability to learn the required number of lines was not appreciated.

Also not appreciated; a past trainer in the Special Operations Executive who was brought up in France and fluent in the language interviewed my French teacher just before my O level and opined that the teacher had not the slightest knowledge of the language. Subsequently the man read through the exam paper and decided that even he found it extremely difficult. Ergo, how did CH get pupils through the exam? After nearly 15 years I still don't know the language well