Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I see you have managed to highlight the part of NA where you live. How did you do that?

I've just found out. Go to your profile, select profile settings and then the appropriate timezone.

You can also add a real name + years etc. in the signature section....then people know who's who!

profile.php?mode=profil&sub=signature

The "Real Name" box in the profile doesn't appear with each post (been trying to get it to for ages!), but is worth filling in, and also putting it in the signature section.

J

THanks Lamma looker (intrigued by your userid). I tried it and it worked. I haven't left it that way - just wanted to know how to do it! And thanks Taylor. I won't put much more info up at this point - but may one day.

My pleasure, Rebel. My userid is one I used as a pen name some years ago when contributing to a business column in the South China Morning Post. Lamma is the island I live on in HK. The looker bit is partly from being a photographer and partly from being qualified as a Royal Navy observer (navigator) - though I was actually in the RAF - and looker is the colloqiual term. Seemed appropriate at the time.

Unfortunately Kit Aitken had a balance handicap which made his accuracy a bit suspect


David Brown Col A 1952-61[/quote]

What a character Kit was ! Thank God I was Col B. N.T. Fryer being our Housemaster.

Kit, as I remember had a false leg, and rode a bike with a fixed pedal, so he only had to use one foot to drive it !

Halcyon Days !

I think I received the cane about three times in Col B.

The most memorable occasion was on the last morning of term, when all were awaked for early breakfast before heading for the station, etc.

Phil Wey and myself were taking our band bugles home in preperation for a band concert at Heacham. (I was Senior bugler !)

We decided to play a full Reveille before the bell, which did NOT please R.A. Hewitt, (Dep. Housemaster), who was still asleep. 6:30am-ish ?

He decided on 6 strokes for each of us.

By the time we had received our punishment, everyone else was in the Dining Hall as Phil and I entered.

Somehow, word had travelled down the tables of what had happened, and the WHOLE SCHOOL stood and applauded.

This made my stinging @rse SO worth while !

Kit Aitken was one of the many "characters" at the school - I know if you were there in the late 50's you knew him and that bike of his. Who was the science master who was always doing things around the Science School, like boiling a sheep's head as I remember him doing outside during one summer term? And the Art mistress? I am so bad with names but the faces and the antics reain real.

I wouldn't know from my own experience, of course, but I have a friend who talked of such a man. I helped my friend write his autobiography which is now in print, and in it he mentions a Mr. Kirby, whom he credits with his own interest in, and ultimately very successful career in science.

And the Art mistress?

That was Nell Todd. Rarely wore a bra and her dresses usually had a scoop neckline. aaaaaahhhh

but I have a friend who talked of such a man

Rebel, was that Mervyn (?) Churchill?

The art mistress was certainly Nell Todd. Strangely, I have recently discovered a photo I took of her walking past the dining hall, I assume on Speech Day. Full dress with large floppy Ascot Races style hat.

I did extra art in my last year at school and absolutely loved that woman, (purely in a pleutonic way). I think she represented my 'missing-mother' from home. She was so open and frank in all her discussions. You could talk to her about anything bothering you. She NEVER treated you as a spotty school-boy as did the majority of the teaches at C.H.

She introduced me to a great family friend of hers, and I was asked over several days to teach this family friend the art of 'pot-throwing', and making bowls and plates.

The family friend was the late and very talented Jaqueline Du Pre ! A lovely girl. We spent hours laughing and joking over the potters wheel.

The Science Master referred to, must surely be 'Rip' Kirby, boiling the heads of sheep for his scruffy dogs !

Thanks - of course Rip Kirby and NellTodd. I was taught the art of cursive handwriting by Nell because my "art" was so bad. Won the writing prize as a result and was then punished by having to write out the inserts for all leaving bibles andprayer books for the next three years. If you left between 1957-9 your Bible has my hand in it.
I remember Nell was assiduously (but vainly) courted by Dimbleby (?) who went on to become an illustrious HM for a secondary comprehensive.
Anyone remember the math teacher who would throw chalk (fairly accurately) at any boy talking in class?

I remember a maths teacher with a deadly accuracy with chalk

He had a terrible stutter and blamed the machine guns he fired in WW2

Can't remember his name but some of us were deliberately naughty so he would have to give us a d-d-d-d-d-d-double d-d-d-damn it d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-detention!

menace wrote:Thanks - of course Rip Kirby and NellTodd. I was taught the art of cursive handwriting by Nell because my "art" was so bad. Won the writing prize as a result and was then punished by having to write out the inserts for all leaving bibles andprayer books for the next three years. If you left between 1957-9 your Bible has my hand in it.
I remember Nell was assiduously (but vainly) courted by Dimbleby (?) who went on to become an illustrious HM for a secondary comprehensive.
Anyone remember the math teacher who would throw chalk (fairly accurately) at any boy talking in class?

You don't mean Jesson-DIBLEY, by any chance ???

Anyone remember the math teacher who would throw chalk (fairly accurately) at any boy talking in class?

Yes, but his name escapes me for the moment. Smallish, Welshman? rugby player - but aren't they all.

courted by Dimbleby (?) who went on to become an illustrious HM for a secondary comprehensive.

Did you mean Jesson-Dibley?