So What Was It Actually Like When the School Went Mixed?

[Spoonbill]

I've never met anyone, male or female, who personally experienced the change-over at CH. So what was it like, brothers and sisters? What was it like if you were a geezer who suddenly had hundreds of dodgy bints dropped onto his head? Did you go red for a month and hide in the Bird Sanctuary? And what was it like for girls, uprooted from Hertford and stoked into the phenomenally stinky cockroach-infested dungeon that is CH Horsham, surrounded by hundreds of outrageously stinky little male squirts who no doubt immediately reverted to mental age 5? What was that first mixed-sex lesson like? How did folks behave? Did the teachers go red? And what of House Baths? And how long was it before someone got herself put in the pudding club? Eh? Eh? Eh?

[srcudlipp]

Spoonbill,

I started at Horsham in 1984. So I had one year of an all boys school, then the girls came along.

Sorry to dissapoint your imagination, but it was all fairly normal. Apart from the fact that the boys outnumbered the girls 4-1, everything went fairly smoothly.

One thing I did notice is that in the years above me Homosexuality seemed to be more prevalent than in my year and below, but I guess that's to be expected.

I personally think that the school environment was a much better place for having girls there, and I hope the experience was equally good for them.

[Bingo the Poop-Eating Dog]

I was really glad I missed the mixed-sex CH era by about five years (?). I found it hard enough to concentrate on school work at the best of times, without wimmin on the premises. And I bet the guys did act up, shoving each other around and trying to make each other look stoopid in front of the gurlz.

As for gay homo bender-sexuality, there really wasn't much of it around in my time. Bearing in mind that 1 in 10 men are meant to be gay, CH was very non-gay indeed - anti-gay, in fact. None of this Eton-style 'homosexuality is normal' stuff. I always put it down to the CH schoolboys being basically working class/lower middle class, with no established traditions of upper-class fruitiness.

I don't recall any gay persons who weren't either despised or jeered at or both.

But I'm sure the school did become a fractionally less vicious place after the laydeez arrived.

[Vonny]

I was at Hertford from 1981 until the schools merged in 1985 so experienced both schools. Have to say it was a big change for us girls. Things were very different at Horsham - far more relaxed in my opinion. Hertford was very old fashioned in a lot of ways and we had little freedom. There was nowhere you could go to get away from it all at Hertford as the school was fairly compact in contrast to Horsham. Most of the teachers at Hertford were old(ish!) - and certainly a few of them had stayed on until the merger - I found that generally the teachers at Horsham were far more human if you like - at least you could have a laugh with some of them - don't remember doing that at Hertford - would have been too scared!
It was a culture shock moving to such a vast school and a lot of us went from virtually knowing everyones names to knowing hardly anyone as the boys far outnumbered the girls. It was much more healthy being in a mixed school and although I don't have particularly bad memories of Hertford when all said & done I think I would have preferred to have been at Horsham from the start.
Have to say I don't remember much about the first lesson we had in with the boys - can't have been that thrilling!

[englishangel]

I am a real oldie, way before the merger (I left in 1972). But back in the dark ages (at Hertford) we were asked how the school could raise money, and we suggested moving to Horsham and selling the Hertford site.

Auntie Dot said 'over my dead body' and it took 12 years fter her retirement (also 1972) before the move was made. However as far as I know she is still alive.

Where I live now we have boy and girl grammar schools, and a mixed school, all of which are equally popular with parents, though my kids are adamant they wouldn't want single sex education.

I had boyfriends (at home) while at Hertford but I went bonkers when I left and went to Uni where men outnumbered women 7:1.

[DavebytheSea]

hmmm ...... maybe a rather unfortunate choice of word in the last sentence!

[englishangel]

I see what you mean.

I did have that reputation but it was totally unearned. I was just a party girl.

[DavebytheSea]

that's what they all say!

[A Dirty Old Jack]

Fancy getting it on with me, girl?

[Tim_B]

Check the boy's grades from 1985-86... as far I recall they were all over the shop! Fellas started using hairspray, allegiances were broken over new interests, classroom banter took on a whole new dimension. And giggling. Serious giggling started. Especially in Biology.

I do recall there were considerably more 'male bonding' stories from my first two years (1984-85), which pretty much died out when the females landed.

In short: it was social chaos for about two years, until we begun to acclimatise. Then the fun really started.

[Vonny]

Fellas started using hairspray

That's certainly true - the first Saturday I was at Horsham a certain Danny O'Neill asked a couple of us to buy him some hairspray from town!

[Tim_B]

Ha. Danny O'Neill... now that's a name I haven't heard in a long while. Quite a head of hair, as I recall. And underneath, one massive grin.

Cheers for the recall, Vonny.

[Vonny]

Ha. Danny O'Neill... now that's a name I haven't heard in a long while. Quite a head of hair, as I recall. And underneath, one massive grin.

Cheers for the recall, Vonny.

Yep - I remember the hair!!! Quite a character he was too!

[Gripper]

I went into the Grecians the year the girls arrived.

If I remember correctly there had already been a couple of brave daughters of masters trying out the system and things did seem to integrate smoothly. Female teachers had also been around for a while - I remember Miss Lindsey's (I think she became Morris or Morrison or something) chemistry lessons well, even if I didn't remember what she was teaching.

There was a lot of fuss over the ban on girls playing rugby, although netball did become a promising spectator sport.

There was a trend towards boys verses girls competitions and few other highlights besides eg:

The day the fire alarm went off in Barnes B after games....
The evening a Barnes B girl was overheard by her house mistress offering a BJ to her boyfriend!!!!
The various sorties by both sexes into opposite sex houses in the night....
The girl who walked in the back door of a boys boarding house (showers entrance) and discovered just why the nickname "stubby" existed!
There were many, many more stories..........

To be honest the whole thing probably did effect grades a little but it was a fun year and the right thing for CH - in my opinion.

[HowardH]

Liz Lindsay married Nick Morton. now lives in York.