Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

The smell of mowed grass on a summer's day, can still see the grass being cut and white-lines being redone ready for sports day at Hertford.

Great Plum wrote:The smell of the Wardrobe (at the back of the kitchens) was certainly unique...

Leather, boot-polish and sprim !

The rumble of a tow-along trolley-thing - supplies being delivered round the Houses by the little men in brown coats.

Freshly polished parquet (?sp) floors always remind me of the dayrooms in house... Brasso, too!

..and every now & then I realise I'm holding my giant tea cup like a tea bowl!! That always takes me back.

mvgrogan wrote: Brasso, too!

Brasso? What happened to Bluebell?

That's another thing!

"The bluebells are beautiful this year". "How I love the scent of bluebells!"

Such comments serve only to remind me of the fanatical shining-up of window catches and door knobs. Indeed, we polished them as if our lives depended on it. The lingering smell of the stuff! The nastiness of tipping it out onto the much stained polishing rag (condemned linings?). The almost permanent staining of one's index finger! The inexorable firmness of one's Head of Duty in making one go back and do one's Bluebells again!

(Incidently, Diane Kimmins, if you're reading this, the morning you made me go back and do my kitchen Bluebells all over again - they were perfectly OK! But I understand that it was just an "exerting your authority" thing. No hard feelings.)

And of course, the ultimate use of Bluebell as an illness-inducing poison! I have written before of the girl in my House who swigged down a noxious draft of the stuff in order to make herself sick enough to be admitted up T'Inf where she'd be able to watch the Monkees on television... Bluebell turned out to be very poisonous...

Interesting, Angela - my own reaction on reading Maria's post was also 'You mean Bluebell' . Mind you, I am surprised that my daughter has even heard of Brasso. Would it be off topic to ask if anybody else feels that their attitude to housework has been permanently influenced (indeed scarred?) by duties at Hertford? It is not enough to do a quick flick round with a duster, it has to be total springclean or nothing, so most of the time it is nothing and we live in total squalor and then I feel guilty about it. And eventually there comes a time when it is all just too awful to contemplate - the girls have threatened in the past to bring in Kim and Aggie (How Clean is Your House?), Donna Walters (Life Laundry), Nick Knowles (DIY SOS) and Alan Titchmarsh (I forget what his garden makeover programme was called - I always preferred Geoff Hamilton, anyway!)all at once. It probably doesn't help that my father was always a perfectionist - 'if a thing is worth doing it is worth doing well' - the fact that he has apparently now stopped cleaning his sink is a sure sign that at 84 he is finally starting to get old. The trouble is that I feel the same at 63 - have we left it too long? Are we going to spend the rest of our lives now living in this squalor, which we no longer have the physical energy to cope with? I still have the mental energy to worry about it, but it doesn't seem to matter to my husband, but then he didn't start off with all that CH perfectionism being drummed into him! I recently bought a fridge magnet which said something like 'My idea of housework is to sweep the room ...... with a glance' - I promptly posted it to Maria! So does the same feeling about housework pervade those who were educated entirely at Horsham - my girls were half-and-half - and did 'duties' (which I believe the boys called 'trades') still exist to the same extent at Horsham as they did at Hertford? Perhaps like school needlework they ceased to exist? Or did they only exist at Hertford because we were all expected to go out into the world and become perfect housewives as well as dedicated professionals? I seem to failed on both counts!

Lots of food for thought here, Frances! Let me postpone ambitions for hoovering!

There might be a bit of a clue in that it was very rarely mentioned that one might become a "housewife" let alone acquire a husband and/or children. It seemed to be assumed for the various heirarchies that one aimed for excellence in academia, music, sport, and needlework (needlework as a feared discipline). Whereas "Duty" was fanatically performed for that period of 0730hrs to 0820hrs, and then not considered for the rest of the day

I find that the performance of Duty has affected me permanently in that I can do only one task per day - shades of Bluebelling all those knobs and windowcatches or doing, with Gumption, three baths and four washbasins. I'll polish all the tables, or dust all the window ledges or hoover all of upstairs and keep it up madly for about half an hour... and then not consider it for the rest of the day...*

Well, apart from cooking/gardening/washing up etc!

Did you do the Dayroom tables in 6s with shoe polish? If the tables hadn't had the polish completely polished off, any needlework being cut out could be in peril from a terrible red-brown smear!

*a quick edit - of course, when I find a fab job, I'll be allowed to forget it for the rest of the day!

Would it be off topic to ask if anybody else feels that their attitude to housework has been permanently influenced (indeed scarred?) by duties at Hertford? It is not enough to do a quick flick round with a duster, it has to be total springclean or nothing, so most of the time it is nothing and we live in total squalor and then I feel guilty about it. And eventually there comes a time when it is all just too awful to contemplate - the girls have threatened in the past to bring in Kim and Aggie (How Clean is Your House?), Donna Walters (Life Laundry), Nick Knowles (DIY SOS) and Alan Titchmarsh (I forget what his garden makeover programme was called - I always preferred Geoff Hamilton, anyway!)all at once.

OMG I knew there was a reason!! Thank you so much!! (HWMBI is looking at me in complete disgust!!) - thank you for making me feel so much better about needing a cleaner, even when I have loads of time on my hands - and for the fact that my garden is a tip and full of daddy longlegs and daffydowndillies that never flower because I keep forgetting to dig them up and split them or whatever you're supposed to do - for the fact that when I have to wash HWMBI's shirts I think it's my right to pay someone else to iron them - for the fact that I can spend all day in the dusty attic (under the stage at Hertford) 'tidying which in fact translates to settling down to read the book for two hours that I found up there during the first five minutes- for the fact that I can spend the entire morning polishing silver happily at my Mum's (Brasso and Bluebell throwback) but will stop afterwards and do nothing at home, (only one job a day as I recall) - for the fact that I love polishing shoes (2s basement must have been someplace special!) - and finally for the fact that I can only really think that washing up is worthwhile when the sink is completely full and I can't find any plates!!!!

Yeah I know, take it away comprades

Fjgrogan wrote:Interesting, Angela - my own reaction on reading Maria's post was also 'You mean Bluebell' . Mind you, I am surprised that my daughter has even heard of Brasso. Would it be off topic to ask if anybody else feels that their attitude to housework has been permanently influenced (indeed scarred?) by duties at Hertford? It is not enough to do a quick flick round with a duster, it has to be total springclean or nothing, so most of the time it is nothing and we live in total squalor and then I feel guilty about it. And eventually there comes a time when it is all just too awful to contemplate - the girls have threatened in the past to bring in Kim and Aggie (How Clean is Your House?), Donna Walters (Life Laundry), Nick Knowles (DIY SOS) and Alan Titchmarsh (I forget what his garden makeover programme was called - I always preferred Geoff Hamilton, anyway!)all at once. ..........I recently bought a fridge magnet which said something like 'My idea of housework is to sweep the room ...... with a glance' - I promptly posted it to Maria! So does the same feeling about housework pervade those who were educated entirely at Horsham - my girls were half-and-half - and did 'duties' (which I believe the boys called 'trades') still exist to the same extent at Horsham as they did at Hertford? Perhaps like school needlework they ceased to exist? Or did they only exist at Hertford because we were all expected to go out into the world and become perfect housewives as well as dedicated professionals? I seem to failed on both counts!

Brasso must have been at school - I doubt it was at home (sorry Mum ). But I have to admit I think it was probably a punishment - doing the brasses! My memory is not great, so I have no idea what I was being punished for, but I'm fairly sure it felt like punishment..... . However, I also remember it being quite satisfying to complete the brasses. I'm still the same - I like to leave jobs like that until I can see the difference, so there is an element of completion/satisfaction.

I'm afraid I can't disagree with mum's approach to housework - I'm pretty much the same - all or nothing - but then I think CH prepared me to have a career rather than be a Domestic Technician (?).

Of course given Mum's comments above I seem to have been influenced twice... by school AND home!

Hoovering these days is delayed to times when Hanna (age 3) is out of the way - she's scared of it - what a GREAT excuse! but as I have laminated floors, it does tend to be swept rather than hoovered, anyway! Dusting is limited to just before visitors arrive but again, I don't really have dustable surfaces. The kitchen gets done everyday because if it didn't I wouldn't be able to use it - it's not a large space.... but then again, my landlord has supplied me with a dishwasher, so I don't have to face the dreaded washing up.

It is true that we have threatened to set the TV house clearing gurus onto Mum's place but the threats didn't seem to work... maybe now is the time to follow through and actually send in that video!! Thanks for reminding me Mum!!

I should also mention that I learned my shoe-polishing skills before I went to CH - from my Dad... as a Sea Cadet Officer he was in uniform twice a week and he taught us how to polish our shoes, not for school but for Brownies... when we were in uniform, too! ...I don't recall EVER using shoe polish on the dayroom tables in sixes, though.

mvgrogan wrote: Brasso must have been at school -

Yes it definitely was used at Hertford! Luckily for me the girl in charge of my duties (cleaning brasses) wasn't really interested & I only recall ever doing the window catches etc once or twice

Lucky for you Vonny. We had to spend what felt like several hours a day cleaning virtually the whole house, when you had finished it had to be passed and then done again if it was not good enough. It was definitely Bluebell that we used, obviously later replaced by Brasso - perhaps Brasso was less poisonous (see above), and no Maria you wouldn't remember either at home because we used Duraglit - mostly for things like Guide badges! I don't remember using shoe polish on dayroom tables and chairs; some sort of sticky furniture polish I think. And there were cleaners who came in to do the floors - no chance of a Swiffer in those days.

Maria and I briefly continued this conversaton on Skype - I had forgotten that the one thing my husband is perfectionist about is his Sea Cadet uniform; for that reason I was long ago banned from ironing shirts because he likes odd extra creases in his, as used apparently by the PT branch of the Navy!? I do however know how to iron a perfect shirt - when I was in the school Guide company I took my launderess badge, tested by Miss Jukes! And to think that I am now being criticised by my daughter who moved to Finland and left her iron in England!! Better get the duster out soon Maria - I shall be over there sometime soon - for those who don't know, Grandchild Number Two is due in about five weeks.

With me, Like many others, it is the smell of the mown grass on Big Side, after the gang mowers had been round. To this day, some 60 odd years since I left CH, it still, instantly, recalls Housey.
I don't want tp get "Off Topic" but there are so many smells which evince total re-call.
Wintergreen Oil (Does that still exist ?)Brasso (The Guards !) -----
I seem to remember that when my wife and I met, whilst reading Psychology ---- (!!!!) we had a session on "Triggers", which encompassed Sounds as well as Smells.

Oh Gerrie and Frances I do so identify. I too am a slut (of the cleaning variety rather than the the other sort). My mother always said it was her influence as she too thought life was too short to dust but said she had no such excuse as her mother was very houseproud.

My sister is the Martha to my Mary. When visiting my parents she would turn up with J cloths and Mr Muscle/Cillit Bang, I would turn up with a bottle of wine and a box of meringues and chocolate eclairs.

englishangel wrote: a box of meringues and chocolate eclairs.

Weally, Marwy Vincett!! You can make mewingues! By Jove, chocolate eclairs too... What's the waising agent in choux pastwy? Well?

Sorry, Mary. The very thought of the sound of That Voice transports me instantly!

Oh, all right,

Moi aussi. I have had a cleaner for over ten years and it's one luxury I'd be very reluctant to give up. I like to see the place looking clean; I'm just too lazy to actually do it. I think it's the fact, as someone mentioned earlier, that cleaning is so repetitive and needs to be done so regularly. I mind less the tasks that can be done less often but where the difference is more noticeable, such as decorating.

I am, however, very tidy - I think that's my mother's influence. On the other hand, if you open my cupboards, you will see that out of sight is out of mind, and the tidiness is somewhat superficial!