Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Ronald Crosland was very bright, too (a technical comment in another thread at http://www.chforum.info/php/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=4376&p=131272&hilit=spiral#p131272 confirms this in my opinion). More about him – he played the cello in school orchestra concerts and also ran the Railway Soci...

Here’s my take on the boys' religious attitudes of the 50s. About 15% were keenly religious, about 20% equally keenly irreligious and most of the rest (about 70%) would describe themselves as C of E if necessary, but not care very much about such matters. Some of them would be confirmed, but for thi...

The sale of this painting went unannounced. When this was discovered there was criticism in published correspondence, especially that it was done in an apparently underhand manner, since it defied the donor’s wishes. If it did frighten Prep boys then it could so easily have been placed somewhere els...

How good to hear of ‘Uncle’ Kirby in action at CH during WW2. Thanks Beany. But I understood that ‘Uncle’ spent some (I thought all) of WW2 as a fulltime member of the Royal Signals when he mainly tested/evaluated new models of wireless sets as they were delivered by manufacturers, probably in respo...

Of course you can find a great deal in the Bible, mainly the New Testament, to derive a very radical set of ideas and ideals and they can certainly make the Labour Party out-Thatcher Thatcher herself. There were quasi-Communist Worker Priests in France for a short while after the Second World War, b...

A housie coat becoming an OB’s dressing gown – this happened while I was at school. A friend obtained his buttons in mid year. For some inexplicable reason his “best” non-buttons housie coat remained in the house for a long while and clearly was forgotten by the Wardrobe authorities. A well heeled O...

Thanks very much Katharine. I’ll try and visit. Be well. M

This matter is unhappily very topical after the recent head-on collision of two trains on a single track in Bavaria. For the Guildford-Horsham train (the “Guildford slug”), which I used for many years, the single line Guildford-CH track was divided into two approximately equal sections. Also there w...

When he retired . on his last day of running the drill there was a huge voluntary attendance . How masochistic was that ? If his training had allowed him I think he might have cried. The huge attendance for “Tush’s” last drill was surely not masochistic. It was affection (at least on my part, for I...

Housey, like everything else it seems, has been modernising. For a while (10, 20 30 years, does anyone know exactly how long?) all bands worn have been “fudged.”

I remember the phase “fudging over the sicker” used by juniors. Although I never tried it myself, occasionally others did. For a single ‘fudging’ I don’t remember any serious consequences. I suppose Dr Scott’s philosophy was “rather safe than sorry”. After all during his tenure there was at least on...

In about 1947 a couple of senior boys from the Reading Bluecoat School stayed for a couple of weeks at CH. They wore their usual school uniform, superficially like Housie clothes, a long blue coat with silver buttons like ours, girdle and bands. Two big differences – they wore corduroy shorts and “f...

Another economy measure during the war, which continued till 1950, was the provision of Housey clothes only for those on the UF and above. Those on lower forms wore a white shirt, a mid-brownish patterned jacket and dark brown corduroy shorts.

You're quite right of course. Do excuse my faulty arithmetic?

Francis (“Fred”) Haselhust (no “r”) died at CH before retirement, while he was still teaching and senior housemaster of Th A in the early 1950s. If he was then aged 64, say, it seems unlikely he could have been at CH in 1925. Does anyone know when he did join CH? I think he may have arrived during F...