Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Today's Church Times contains a reflection by Rev David Bryant, an OB and retired vicar, on the CH graces. You can read it at http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=85166 .

Mmm he doesn't seem to have many happy memories of his time there does he? The food sounds dire, even worse than ours!

When I was little I thought all newspapers had to be called Times - we got The Times daily, the Radio Times, the Church Times and The Eastbourne Times (? certainly the local paper something Times) weekly - obvious if 4 of them are called Times they must all be!

Thanks for sharing this, Mary.

Decidedly off topic, but along the same lines as Katharine's comments on 'Times' - when my girls were little they thought that 'chicken' was a generic term for meat of any kind!

Katharine, don't forget that rationing was still in progress at the time he was at Horsham. I don't recognise the Graces, I don't think we used those, but the ersatz tea (drunk out of bowls) and the tapioca with wooden-pipped "rasperry" jam I certainly remember.

Both Graces were said -- all through the War --- Rationing or not !

Whisper it -- CH owned several Tenant Farms !!

The Graces were said three times daily at Hertford too, Neill, whatever tricks Mary's memory is playing today! At tea in the 6s everyone had to say Grace in seniority order, quite an ordeal the first few times! I well remember the jam - we used to call it nondescript red muck, that came in 2 kinds, basic and with wooden pips!

Katharine wrote:Mmm he doesn't seem to have many happy memories of his time there does he? The food sounds dire, even worse than ours!

.

Not too bad a description of life - his time ended two years after I went there. I don't recognise the graces AFAIR the first one should be much longer than the second; they were said at every meal every day. In one part I disagree:


We learned to serve God (though we were unaware that we were doing so) by befriending the new boy, sharing tuck, lending threepence to the lad without any pocket money, playing marbles with a homesick classmate, or helping out a weaker brother with a tricky Greek unseen.


Like hell we did; it was each boy for himself and heaven help the hindermost. Share tuck - it would be nicked if it were not confiscated by an older boy first. Lending money? we didn't have any to lend. Playing marbles - not to my knowledge, Greek unseens - I can't comment but French irregular verbs elicited no help whatsoever. I think that his calling has provoked a slightly rosy glow to his memories.

sejintenej wrote:

Katharine wrote:Mmm he doesn't seem to have many happy memories of his time there does he? The food sounds dire, even worse than ours!

.

Not too bad a description of life - his time ended two years after I went there. I don't recognise the graces AFAIR the first one should be much longer than the second; they were said at every meal every day. In one part I disagree:


We learned to serve God (though we were unaware that we were doing so) by befriending the new boy, sharing tuck, lending threepence to the lad without any pocket money, playing marbles with a homesick classmate, or helping out a weaker brother with a tricky Greek unseen.


Like hell we did; it was each boy for himself and heaven help the hindermost. Share tuck - it would be nicked if it were not confiscated by an older boy first. Lending money? we didn't have any to lend. Playing marbles - not to my knowledge, Greek unseens - I can't comment but French irregular verbs elicited no help whatsoever. I think that his calling has provoked a slightly rosy glow to his memories.

I dont remember any of these exhortations --- are we talking about different "Graces" ?

Ours were said, at meals by a Button Grecian from the Grinling Gibbons Pulpit, controlled (Not the Pulpit JR !) by the knocks on the gavel by the Master i/c Meals 2 knpcks or one, to organise Grace, sitting, standing, clearing etc..

Nurse --- My Tablets please ! (Extasy !)

englishangel wrote:Katharine, don't forget that rationing was still in progress at the time he was at Horsham. I don't recognise the Graces, I don't think we used those, but the ersatz tea (drunk out of bowls) and the tapioca with wooden-pipped "rasperry" jam I certainly remember.

Yes, I remember both those graces.

I agree with David that the author has a somewhat rosy view, though obviously I only know about Hertford. I remember in the sixth form one of our (non-resident) staff suggesting that our boarding school experience must have made us much more tolerant, less selfish, and willing to share - and even at the time I remember thinking "like hell it has - we are allowed so little privacy, personal space, and so few personal possessions here that I'm much more fiercely protective of what's mine than I ever was before".

I had brothers and a sister so I learned to share before I went to CH (partly why I went, because my sister was 8 years younger and we had to share a bedroom and I was considered a 'high-flier' )but I can well agree with Jo, that once there it would have been "what's mine is mine" except we didn't have anything personal, certainly no money.

Katharine wrote:The Graces were said three times daily at Hertford too, Neill, whatever tricks Mary's memory is playing today! At tea in the 6s everyone had to say Grace in seniority order, quite an ordeal the first few times! I well remember the jam - we used to call it nondescript red muck, that came in 2 kinds, basic and with wooden pips!

I remember saying Grace, but not those.

Jo wrote:

englishangel wrote:Katharine, don't forget that rationing was still in progress at the time he was at Horsham. I don't recognise the Graces, I don't think we used those, but the ersatz tea (drunk out of bowls) and the tapioca with wooden-pipped "rasperry" jam I certainly remember.

Yes, I remember both those graces.

I agree with David that the author has a somewhat rosy view, though obviously I only know about Hertford. I remember in the sixth form one of our (non-resident) staff suggesting that our boarding school experience must have made us much more tolerant, less selfish, and willing to share - and even at the time I remember thinking "like hell it has - we are allowed so little privacy, personal space, and so few personal possessions here that I'm much more fiercely protective of what's mine than I ever was before".

Me too Jo, but I also respect other's space, belongings and privacy, as, I'm sure, we all do courtesy of life at Hertford or Horsham.

I am also still able to eat in confined spaces. When there's some good goss to share at lunchtime we tend to crowd onto one table, and I will be heard exorting people to tuck their elbows in and not stab the person sitting next to them

I have just looked in my copy of The Christ's Hospital Book - as an appendix there are Prayers written by Henry Compton, sometime Bishop of London including these Graces. I then googled he lived from 1632 – 7 July 1713, I had no idea they were so old!

Carolyn what Graces did you use? After all the years of hearing these three times a day I'm pretty sure I would be word perfect now. In fact when asked to say Grace before an Inner Wheel lunch I did say "Give us thankful hearts ...", that one can be used by anyone*, the other is more specifically CH.

* The good creatures is a bit dated now!

Katharine wrote:
Carolyn what Graces did you use?


!

Me?

Don't know, except that they would have been the same ones as Mary V, MaryMc, Jo,and even Kerren and yourself.

I 'remember' the post meal grace as being interminably long and full of words with Rs in them: religious, royal ..............

I did a bit of googling and came up with a CD that includes The Hertford Grace, an organ work composed by (I read) Jean Taverner, but when I googled it again later found that it was composed by John Taverner.

Think I'll lie down with a big box of tissues and watch Local Hero: the theme tune was playing on the car radio as we loaded Jess, baby Mitch, Pomthedog, Peegeethesiamese and PoppleJess'fwiend into our purple Falcon with beige vinyl roof in the pre-dawn Whangarei darkness to head to Auckland airport and begin another stage of our lives in Adelaide.

Carolyn - I agree the Grace after the meal seemed very long when we were at school and looks quite short written down. It is impossible to read it quickly and get your tongue around all the words. I remember we used to hope for the Reader to say OIL the Royal family - one or two did the first time they read in Dining Hall.