Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Be interesting to know whether the authorities have lightened up in recent years with regard to this kind of thing. When I was thirteen, my best mate copped a good skelping with the cane for being in possession of just two pictures (tiny ones, cut from an utterly inoffensive softie publication), while another kid also got a whacking for owning an ridiculously harmless set of playing cards with naff 1950s-style topless photos on their reverses. Hard to see what the problem was. Whacked for showing signs of heterosexuality....whacked for showing signs of homosexuality....I'm amazed they didn't just cane us for breathing.

The hypocrisy of school monitors etc. was also rather hard to bear. They didn't just bust smokers (in spite of smoking themselves); they also carried out porn raids on studies (in spite of having stashes themselves). I remember discovering my own house-captain's stash and nicking it for a week, just to make him feel uncomfortable in the housemaster's presence. Haw haw haw.

Did you get whacked? Where did you stash your cache? Do tell.

Not sure I can remember publications of the 'adult' variety doing the rounds at Horsham.

What I DO remember, was the complete ban on 'Trash-Mags'.

These were generally American super-hero type comics, (Superman etc).

The ones that really seemed to get the masters dander up, were the small war 'Trash-Mags', obtainable from the open air market in the Carfax, up a small alley almost next to 'Ye Olde Stout House'. These were the magazines that always referred to the Germans as 'Fritz' and the Japanese as 'slit-eye', or 'Tojo'. Always references to 'Donner Und Blitzen' and 'Banzai !!'

Seem to remember that there was an illicit 'swopping' regime on Saturday evenings, after visits to Horsham, catch up on the exploits of our gallant boys in WWII.

Discovery by a master usually resulted in the destruction of the said magazine in front of the House and could be accompanied by a 'jolly good thrashing !!' (Just think - Some very rich conservative politicians pay a fortune for that sort of treatment these days ! )

'Trash Mags' were very popular when I was a junior - everyone read them, no problem with them being 'illegal', though.

"For you, Tommy, ze var iss over"........

Who can forget the witty dialogue?

"Trash mag." I had completely forgotten that description until JR mentioned it. Yes we read them in my time. I don't recall them being illegal as such, but if a master or monitor saw us with one it was suggested that our time could be better employed reading something of greater literary merit.

On the question of "Adult" material I can recall the occasional copy of "Health And Efficiency" or "Mayfair" being passed between the select few but that was about it. I have no recollection of anybody being caught with "porn" and punished.

why would you risk getting caned for a sub-standard xenophobic comic? surely that's just the Daily Mail without the crossword...

i do remember a 3rd form when i was on my LE who brought in a hold-all brimming with porn mags. he then freely distributed them around the house. legend.

also remember a bunch of fundamentalist parents trying to stop other people's kids having pin-ups. this nearly resulted in a punch up between parents one leave weekend in the 'quiet' room. the liberals won. (which was probably a first for CH)

Well, we didn't get whacked, but Dr Mundill did try to ban 'More' magazine. He didn't think the juniors should be reading about "positions of the fortnight"...

Where else were we going to learn about that stuff? Certainly not from our 'Education for Living' lessons, during which we were all too busy pulling faces, nudging each other and idly speculating. At least 'More' had "do it safely" messages plastered all over it!

Adult material. I have summed up a typical progression (purely hypothetical of course)...

Second Form - Third Form:

One might start on something relatively harmless such as page 3 of The Sun and then perhaps progress on to SKY magazine.

LE - UF:

Having exhausted the various lad mags and The Daily Sport, Penthouse would appear, followed by Mayfair and Razzle.

GE - Grecians:

After a brief period of print-induced self abuse the arrival of - video!!


I supposed these days it's all DVD (ordered online of course).

When I was a junior, our housemaster banned Sven Hassell novels (on the grounds that they weren't quite the thing) and also the News of the World (which I think was a wise move, since it encourages morons to think of all coppers as bent, all clergyman as hypocrites, etc., etc. and to relish seeing principled people coming unstuck).

As for printed imagery, back then there always seemed to be tons of the stuff dumped at the roadside, dumped in woodland, dumped at field margins and so forth. Whenever you saw some rain-soaked, disintegrating paper at the side of the road, you always knew what it'd turn out to be. I've always guessed that the cessation of this phenomenon was due to the widespread introduction of dustbin bags in the 1980s; people who'd formerly been embarrassed to sling their magazines in the bin (for fear that the binmen would see them) used to lob them out of their car windows as the perfect way of disposing of them without blushes. Marlpost Wood often had that kind of thing lying about in it.

A couple of lads got caned in my time purely for possessing some pages they'd found at the roadside, which I can't help feeling was unjust. I mean, they hadn't illegally bought the stuff, had they? And as I understand it, whilst purchase of saucy material by minors is illegal, possession of it isn't. (Nor was it listed as contrary to School Rules.) So what were they actually caned for? And what lesson were they supposed to learn from the caning? It's beyond me.

So, how did you watch videos on the QT? Are pupils allowed TVs in their studies these days? (The only entertainment we had in my days was watching daddy longlegs trapped inside striplight casings.)

Bingo the Poop-Eating Dog wrote:So, how did you watch videos on the QT? Are pupils allowed TVs in their studies these days? (The only entertainment we had in my days was watching daddy longlegs trapped inside striplight casings.)

The house tv & video would be used, but a junior member of the house would be put on KV duty...

J.R. wrote:What I DO remember, was the complete ban on 'Trash-Mags'. The ones that really seemed to get the masters dander up, were the small war 'Trash-Mags'. These were the magazines that always referred to the Germans as 'Fritz' and the Japanese as 'slit-eye', or 'Tojo'. Always references to 'Donner Und Blitzen' and 'Banzai !!'

UNPLEASANT CONFESSION: At the age of 21 I suddenly started buying these things again obsessively ('War Picture Library', 'Battle Picture Library', 'Commando Picture Library' etc.). My appetite went out of control and a huge stack of the things grew up in my kitchen, threatening to topple and crush me. Only when I moved house did I manage to leave the filthy habit behind me - but I went on buying 'The Victor' evey week till I was 23. (Ouch!)

I blame the Leeds water supply.

(But I still reckon they were pretty classy little publications - nice artwork - and I bet they'd fetch a few bob on eBay these days. No shortage of sad nutters out there....)

I think Jackie was the worst (?) thing we ever had at Hertford. We girls were more into reading novels of the Anya Seton, Georgette Heyer variety. And I did read about 200 Barabara Cartland novels between finishing A Levels and leaving school.

I was most surprised on my wedding night when it didn't finish *****

Mid A 15 wrote:"Trash mag." I had completely forgotten that description until JR mentioned it. Yes we read them in my time. I don't recall them being illegal as such, but if a master or monitor saw us with one it was suggested that our time could be better employed reading something of greater literary merit.

On the question of "Adult" material I can recall the occasional copy of "Health And Efficiency" or "Mayfair" being passed between the select few but that was about it. I have no recollection of anybody being caught with "porn" and punished.

Arrr ! Good old 'Health and Efficiency' ! That magazine had a lot to answer for. I must have been about 12 when I discovered that womwn were'nt as smooth as a 'billiard-ball' ---- down 'there'. Funnily enough one of our Grand-Daughters actually asked me the other day exactly what 'air-brushing' was.

Do remember that 'Lady Chatterly's Lover' came off the 'banned' list after that historic court case whilst I was at C.H. Probably the first erotic book I ever read.

Certainly wasn't the last !

I remember that court case too John. My aunt was Frieda's daughter and bought a rather nice house at Burpham near Arundel on the royalties that came her way.

Vague memory flooding back here. A lad in Mid A in my time sent off to a mail order company for some decidedly seedy magazines (involving, I believe, unnatural acts with farmyard animals); the packet arrived split open and was picked up in the centre hall by a member of staff, who had a good look at it. The first thing the boy who ordered it knew, he'd been summoned to the headmaster's study where he was required to open the said packet in the presence of the headmaster and Ron Lorimer (his doting housemaster) and peruse the material in eyeshot of them. All very uncomfortably face-reddening, I imagine (and probably followed by a sound whacking). Don't ask me who the kid was, 'cos I can't recall. Maybe an ex-Mid A type like richardb could tell us (but being a legal practitioner, he'd probably think twice before naming names).

Happy days.

Spoonbill wrote:Vague memory flooding back here. A lad in Mid A in my time sent off to a mail order company for some decidedly seedy magazines (involving, I believe, unnatural acts with farmyard animals); the packet arrived split open and was picked up in the centre hall by a member of staff, who had a good look at it. The first thing the boy who ordered it knew, he'd been summoned to the headmaster's study where he was required to open the said packet in the presence of the headmaster and Ron Lorimer (his doting housemaster) and peruse the material in eyeshot of them. All very uncomfortablely face-reddening, I imagine (and probably followed by a sound whacking). Don't ask me who the kid was, 'cos I can't recall. Maybe an ex-Mid A type like richardb could tell us (but being a legal practitioner, he'd probably think twice before naming names).

Happy days.

Slightly worried by your age, Spoonbill.

If you really ARE 3, your typing is, (in Mr. Kipling's words), exceedingly good.

Ron Lorimer. There's another name to be conjured with. I believe he joined C.H. staff in my second or third year, around 62 or 63. I think he made C.H. a life long career, retiring quite recently. Didn't he command the R.A.F. section of the C.C.F. ?