Deputy Grecian-2007+

[Angela Woodford]

Alas - one of my greatest longings - tiny feet, delicately high arches, perfectly pedicured, some Jimmy Choo high heels, and pose! pose! pose!

Go for it, Gemma!

*sighs*

[cj]

I'm like blondie95 - 5'9" with size 8 feet at school, size 9 now. But I would look like a right t!t with small feet. I've always wondered what it might be like to be petite and bijou rather than a dollop of a person.

[gemmygemmerson]

It's a blooming good job that I'm only 5 foot 1 then isn't it.

[cj]

It's a blooming good job that I'm only 5 foot 1 then isn't it.

Indeed, bless you! One of my best friends at CH, who is still a bessie mate, was 4' 11 1/2", the half inch being very important. And with tiddly feet.

btw, congrats on your fantastic exam results. It's a great achievement and one you should rightly be proud of.

How many days to go 'til you start? Have you started packing yet?

[gemmygemmerson]

Vertically Challenged is the preferred term

Only 8 days to go, next week tomorrow and I'll be off to CH. I've packed one suitcase just full of things I won't be using till I get to CH but it's only my tiddly one since I have a small, medium and large that all fit into each other for easy storage .

I'll probably do the bulk of my packing sometime next week, starting the mass immigration of things from my room into the red suitcases.

[kerrensimmonds]

How things have changed! We had a 'trunk' (large 'box' with wooden bands around it) which was sent 'PLA' (passenger's luggage in advance) and then a small attache case which we carried for our actual journey. My trunk is still in my garage, still containing several mementoes from my A level year - plus two million spiders. Porters for the school collected the trunks or other cases/boxes from Hertford East Station and deposited them in the right House (the luggage labels were colour coded) for us to unpack when we arrived. Similarly, at the end of term, our empty trunks would be brought up from the bowels of the house, packed, sealed, and then carted off to the station to be sent to our home addresses the day before we actually travelled. What amazes me is that my memory says that the 'delay' each way was no more than two days.. which if correct would seem to indicate that the railways 50 years ago were a lot more reliable than they are now! But then these days children would be more likely to be taken to school by car, so the car can be filled with whatever they want to take and have room for when they get there!
Oh dear.. another lapse into old fogeydom!
Kerren

[gemmygemmerson]

I think you can still take a trunk?. It said on the induction pack thingy that you can but have to send it in advance.
Due to my family's unfortunate lack of a car and thus our need to use public transport to get there next sunday I have to use suitcases. It's pretty much been minimalised as far as possible to the small suitcase filled with bedding etc and then the middle filled with bath towels, toiletries, shoes and books and the largest suitcase filled with clothing. After that I'll hav emy backpack for stationary and my laptop carry case for of course, my laptop.
It sounds like a lot of luggage but It all compacts


Edited to say that I've now reached 330 posts

[Ajarn Philip]

... I have to use suitcases. It's pretty much been minimalised as far as possible to the small suitcase filled with bedding etc and then the middle filled with bath towels, toiletries, shoes and books and the largest suitcase filled with clothing. After that I'll hav emy backpack for stationary and my laptop carry case for of course, my laptop.

I do seem to recall taking some items of clothing (available only at John Lewis - I think the bill was more than my fees!), but the rest doesn't ring too many bells... especially bedding! I'm sorry, Gemma, I'm not really extracting the Michael, but I can't help a wry chuckle as I think how many trunks I'd have needed to take that lot as well as the usual load. And you're managing it all in suitcases! The sheets were okay in the 60s and 70s, but the blankets must have been prison issue rejects. Then again, I don't suppose you have bedboards and horsehair mattresses either, do you?

Does anyone remember what we called the "fixing" of the bedboards, so that they'd all fall out and everything would fall through the bedframe when the unfortunate victim sat on it? I'm sure there was a specific name for this... (please don't say it was "fixing")

[Katharine]

We certainly did not take any bedding or towels with us, and only a few specified pieces of clothing, as has been discussed previously. Some aspects of CH life were very different in our time!!

[MKM]

By the time I went to Hertford we didn't use trunks or PLA, just a large suitcase plus a small attache case. Like Gemma, my family didn't have a car, and I remember struggling home on public transport with my heavy case. My shoulders, back and arms would ache the next day! On one occasion I had to lug it upstairs on a bus, because there was no room downstairs. The conductor was not sympathetic.

It's a good thing we didn't have to take bedding, or many clothes.

I haven't learnt from the experience because I'm still a hopeless over-packer, and take far too many things on holday. At least now I have a suitcase with wheels.

[midget]

If you didn't have a car, and were not travelling by train, you had to use Carter Patterson. For much of my time at CH I had to travel by Green Line bus, which was treated by the staff as something of an inconvenience. When I was in 1s, I was not allowed to travel alone, so had to wait for my father to come from Dunstable via St Albans to collect me. When I went into 3s Miss Norris was having none of that, and would escort me to the bus in Hertford, on condition that I was met at St Albans for the next stage of the journey. As i used to suffer from travel sickness, the whole thing was a nightmare.
If we had to change stations in London we had to be escorted by Universal Aunts, at our own expense. Do they still exist?

Maggie

[kerrensimmonds]

Maggie., I THINK that the Corps of Commissionaires still exists, to escort minors across London for whatever purpose. I have not however checked this out, but I know that they were still in existence around five years ago. I guess Universal Aunts was a sort of female branch of that?!

[blondie95]

I'm like blondie95 - 5'9" with size 8 feet at school, size 9 now. But I would look like a right t!t with small feet. I've always wondered what it might be like to be petite and bijou rather than a dollop of a person.

i sometimes take a nine, i did look silly at school when i was only 5'6'' with size 8 feet and was so skinny iwas likened to a baby giraffe!
I now love my height and my feet size (i dont think i would if places like New Look didnt do size 8/9's)

[gemmygemmerson]

This is a question that probably can't be answered by many of you but I feel the need to ask anyway!.

Is it possible to order things over the net while at CH ( as in, on my own Natwest account ) and get them delivered to me at my boarding house?. I am hoping it is acceptable since I can see myself forgetting things and needing to order them online. sooooooo, if anyone can shed light it would be immensely helpful

[kerrensimmonds]

Hello Gemma
As far as I am concerned you are asking a dinosaur. We did not have the internet in our day.. and when we went back to school at the start of term we handed over our pocket money (it was a minimum of 15 shillings, 75p today!) to the House Mistress to manage on our behalf. If we needed e.g. toothpaste or sewing cotton, she would shop for it and take the money from our account.
As an inveterate internet shopper these days, 50 years on, I hope that you will get a positive answer from those who are younger than me, not dinosaurs, and part of today's CH culture. Good luck!
Kerren