Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I was at CH between 1956-64 so I thought that I'd tell you about my novel Rank Insubordination! which is partly inspired by my time at the school. It's now available on Amazon. Here's the link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=rank+insub ... anker_1_20

As you can discover when you click the title, the book is set in an English Public School at the time of the Suez Crisis and the end of Empire in the mid-50s. It's essentially comic but also dramatic. I was inspired by the divisions over Brexit and also my personal experience of my time at CH. The book isn't a documentary and my imagination develops the story but it is rooted in personal experience.

The kindle version is cheap (£2.39) but you do then miss the two rather splendid colour illustrations of the hard copy. In fact, the illustrator was recommended by my close actor friend the late Tim Woodward, the son of Edward of Callan fame etc . Whatever choice you make, I do hope that you can help a first-time novelist!

I should mention that although the story centres around a male establishment of that time, there are also several female characters in the book, not least the women who had to adjust to civilian life after WW2.

I think that Old Blues would enjoy it, so I do hope that you'll give it a go!

I shall read this with interest. I was in Col B when the Suez affair blew up and I remember how our monitors turned on the house radio at prep time so that we could listen to Anthony Eden flexing his muscles against Col Nasser. It split the nation. There were fights in Trafalgar Square between leftists on the one hand and members of the League of Empire Loyalists on the other - the latter suspected of being the remnants of Mosley's British Union of Fascists from before the war.

I think the more thoughtful among us realised that the time was coming to an end when we could go on practising gunboat diplomacy around the world.