Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Welcome bacj, Philip, I hope you are recovering rapidly.

From my experience (Not Personal, you understand) of Chiefs with multiple wives, the new one is ALWAYS told she will be Senior Wife.

HO HO Ho ! Have you any idea of the Hierachy in a Harem ?? ------- the REAL Senior Wife, rules with a rod (Sometimes literally) if not of iron, then something suitable ! and has the duty of keeping the peace, among the others.


But then we all lie to our prospective Beloveds --- don't we ???

Guilty, as charged, M'lud.

NEILL THE NOTORIOUS wrote:From my experience (Not Personal, you understand) of Chiefs with multiple wives, the new one is ALWAYS told she will be Senior Wife.

HO HO Ho ! Have you any idea of the Hierachy in a Harem ?? ------- the REAL Senior Wife, rules with a rod (Sometimes literally) if not of iron, then something suitable ! and has the duty of keeping the peace, among the others.


But then we all lie to our prospective Beloveds --- don't we ???

Guilty, as charged, M'lud.

Death Wish, Neill ??

JR --- I repeat that TBA does not know how to access this Forum ---- (Praise the Lord !)

NEILL THE NOTORIOUS wrote:JR --- I repeat that TBA does not know how to access this Forum ---- (Praise the Lord !)

Are you sure?

Does she know how to use Google?

I'll bet she is laughing away to herself!!

NEILL THE NOTORIOUS wrote:JR --- I repeat that TBA does not know how to access this Forum ---- (Praise the Lord !)

I wouldn't mind betting TBA's having a good old laugh up her sleeve at your naivete, NTN!!!

Angela Woodford wrote:Well!

Ooh, yes please Philip. Schoolboys... horseplay.... rugby! Maybe snaps from the showers?

(Hastily snapping back into virtuous mode) So interesting to learn more about life at Horsham.

No showers.............but I did find this one:-


The unfortunate victim is Gareth Balle but it illustrates the total lack of privacy in the lav ends, note too the water level, there was never a lack of hot water that I recall. Against the back wall is the mop, it was not uncommon for the lav ends to be awash with an inch or two of water.

i remember baths after the housemaster had gone to bed filled to overflowing (there was a plug hole in the floor) and laying in them smoking and chatting (there were 2 baths opposite each other). when you got out you just used a big squeegy thing on a broom handle to push the excess water towards the drain.

Wow! Look at the depth of hot water!

3" only! The perma-stained old enamel baths demonstrated our enforced adherance to this rule. Stains that couldn't be erased with Gumption - junior house bath cleaning stuff in a tin.

In a Junior House, we had the demented Millie to sweep aside the cubicle curtain "to check on the depth of the water". However, in a Senior House, nobody swept away the curtains. It was nice hot water enhanced with Aqua Manda towards my final years.

Our Housemistress, dear old Miss Scott-Haughton, had no interest in checking our bath procedures, thank goodness.

Good heavens - how did we progress from Holly Walsh to lav ends and bath water? I never realised that CH pioneered the modern day trend for wet rooms, which are pretty much the norm in Finland but only beginning to creep in here in the UK! Perhaps Kerren and Katharine will remember the days of the Suez Crisis when we were restricted to the amount of water we could have in the bath; a thread was tied round the plug chain to indicate the maximum level allowed - it never seemed to occur to anyone to move the thread up! I vividly remember in particular Miss Henshaw who was an assistant wardmistress in 5's and made a habit of barging into bath cubis. She also used to get uptight about whether or not we should be wearing our vests in bed - only she called them singlets - but then she was from New Zealand. She didn't survive long anyway!

Fjgrogan wrote: Perhaps Kerren and Katharine will remember the days of the Suez Crisis when we were restricted to the amount of water we could have in the bath; a thread was tied round the plug chain to indicate the maximum level allowed

In 8s the thread was red, and our bathwater level was checked before we got in. Mrs. Coveney would never have dreamed of being around at bathtime, it was always senior girls supervising.

bobcrawshaw wrote: The unfortunate victim is Gareth Balle but it illustrates the total lack of privacy in the lav ends, note too the water level, there was never a lack of hot water that I recall. Against the back wall is the mop, it was not uncommon for the lav ends to be awash with an inch or two of water.

What luxury! you even had tiles on the wall. I don't know if that was Col A but if so I remember that very bath; it had a line so the water could not be more than 4 or perhaps 3 inches deep when you were in it. We didn't bother with the depth rule too much - the water pressure was so low that it took an age to get any water. Also we didn't have a mop that I remember because there was never enough allowed water to slop out of the bath. We didn't have wash basins - we had a long trough so I suppose we had metal bowls for water. The loos (almost equally pubic) were behind the camera person.

For the benefit of the ladies, the showers were on the ground floor, almost just inside the back door so [use your imagination and it was more basic than even that].

sejintenej wrote:
The loos (almost equally pubic) were behind the camera person.

Freudian slip, or what???