Pranks in Chapel

Anything that doesn't fit anywhere else, but that's still CH related.

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Oliver
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Real Name: Oliver Underwood

Re: Pranks in Chapel

Post by Oliver »

I have just come across this extract from a letter written 30 years ago by BK Wallace (Col A, 1918-24) who wrote about the topic of this thread.

- “… juniors were an irreverent lot and we had our own special jokes to liven our worship. In the hymn ‘Thy kingdom come, O God’ instead of ‘By many deeds of shame we learn that love grows cold’ with glee we sang, ‘By many deeds of shame we learn that Lovegrove’s cold”. Nothing against Lovegrove, the school beadle, mind you, for he was a pleasant ex-policemen with rosy cheeks and a kind smile who carried out his duties efficiently and quietly.
We had another joke in the hymn, ‘Hark my soul it is the Lord’. Instead of ‘Can a women’s tender care cease toward the child she bare,’ we sang, ‘Can a woman’s tender care cease to toward the child she-bear?’.
* - Kelsey’s peculiar accent [Cockney] - He “led us into the Lord’s prayer with “Oewer Father” and we all mimicked him. We did not do it again, a stern reprimand was transmitted to us thro' the house captains.”

(The Rev William Richard Kelsey was a teacher of physics and a very bright man, who had written two text books. He was a terrible disciplinarian and had a most pronounced Cockney accent. I suspect that such an accent was exceedingly uncommon for CH masters in those days.)
Chris T
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Re: Pranks in Chapel

Post by Chris T »

This is a non-Chapel prank, but it merits mention, even if only to condemn it for its crassness. By chance I came across a recording on You Tube (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-6CAfxwHlQ ) called “christ hospital school prank” [sic], which recounts a fictitious phone call to CH allegedly from someone living nearby whose property was repeatedly vandalised by 12 year old boys in Housey uniform. It is not very funny and the largest surprise for me was the reaction of the CH representative dealing with the call. If the current school jokers can’t do better than this, standards have dropped greatly in the last 50 years.
dsmg
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Re: Pranks in Chapel

Post by dsmg »

Chris T wrote:This is a non-Chapel prank, but it merits mention, even if only to condemn it for its crassness. By chance I came across a recording on You Tube (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-6CAfxwHlQ ) called “christ hospital school prank” [sic], which recounts a fictitious phone call to CH allegedly from someone living nearby whose property was repeatedly vandalised by 12 year old boys in Housey uniform. It is not very funny and the largest surprise for me was the reaction of the CH representative dealing with the call. If the current school jokers can’t do better than this, standards have dropped greatly in the last 50 years.
It has nothing to do with CH. It's Lincoln Christ's Hospital.
Play up Pompey!
Chris T
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Re: Pranks in Chapel

Post by Chris T »

Thanks very much, dsmg. I'm greatly relieved.

I trust that all readers will please forgive my error. Sorry. Chris T
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Eruresto
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Re: Pranks in Chapel

Post by Eruresto »

geoffreycannon wrote:Such positive waves! Beautiful! But so far I am reminded of Crocodile Dundee. You call those pranks... Here is a prank! Three pranks.
Sermon Cricket. I'm sure I have mentioned this already on some other thread of this inspiring site, but here goes. I noticed recently that Gordon van Praagh also played sermon cricket. Not with us though. It can be played solo but it is much better as a team game. The inspiration came from a PG Wodehouse story in a book that was in our house library. You all may know the basic rules. Certain features of a sermon count as 'out', bowled, LBW, caught, hit wicket, whatever. Other features count as runs, a single, 2 or 3, a boundary or 6. Us pranksters first of all devised the rules, which we felt should give realistic results, like say 185 for 7 or 230 all out per half-hour sermon (was that their length). Then using the calendars issued to all boys at the beginning of term, we marked all the preachers and drew lots. I drew the preacher on Trinity Sunday, which was well into the summer term. We put our money into the kitty, and during the sermon we all kept scores in concealed notebooks and compared scores afterwards. This was fun. But my preacher was something else, because in our rules, god was 2, the son or Jesus or Christ was a boundary, and the Holy Ghost or Spirit was into the pavilion as 6. After 10 minutes my preacher was doing a Bradman, on something like 452 to 2. The other thing though, is that he was one of those reverends who believed they are great jokesmiths and that God is a lot of fun too, as well as all that smiting. So leaning over the pulpit imediately down on us, he beamed with joy and then with increasing confusion, because we were laughing for sure, doubled up, heaving with suppressed bellows of glee - but at his score, not his jokes, and also at him in his puzzlement wondering whether or not it was his jokes we were finding so funny. At the end his score was something like 666 for 4, and at the end of term the merry band paid out and I collected the kitty. This outcome of what we devised more as a secret pastime than a prank, was cruel, but making Revs miserable was also part of our mission.

I need to start doing this...


Prankswise, placing an (open) hymnbooks, standing up, on a pew in front just as someone went to sit down was always a favourite.
Joshua Bell: PeA 2002-2008, GrW 2008-9
Chapeau Brun
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Re: Pranks in Chapel

Post by Chapeau Brun »

On at least one occasion during the 1970's, UIVMM, for no obvious reason, I seem to recall a cold sausage making it's way the length and back of several rows during a service. No idea where it came from. Made us smile.
Straz
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Re: Pranks in Chapel

Post by Straz »

Ah... you're referring to a "Sausage In Communion", one of the funniest threads on this forum:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3019
Sadly I missed the incident myself, but it was clearly a classic! :rolleyes: :axe: :drinkers: :D
Paul Strange
Leigh Hunt A 1969-71
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