So, the underground tunnels...

Share your memories and stories from your days at school, and find out the truth behind the rumours....Remember the teachers and pupils, tell us who you remember and why...

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sejintenej
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by sejintenej »

ColeridgeA40 wrote:I remember as a swab in Col A having occasionally to do coal duty - one went down the tube to the coal hole and loaded scuttle from the heap, sometimes you had to bash the big bits with a pick-axe to get the smaller bits off, then you lugged the scuttle to the dumb waiter and put it on the platform. The other swab would haul it up and take it to Kit Aitken or the other other housemaster's study ( being very careful not to make a mess on the carpet) and also to take scuttles to the two studies at the end of the dayroom for the house captain and his deputy ( in my day that was Paddington & Hiner). Was it easier to load in the tube, or carry to the studies?
My condolences; that was one job we didn't have when I was a swab or trades mon only a few years before you. In fact I don't think the monitors ever had fires lit
What happens if a politician drowns in a river? That is pollution.
What happens if all of them drown? That is solution!!!
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jhopgood
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

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sejintenej wrote:My condolences; that was one job we didn't have when I was a swab or trades mon only a few years before you. In fact I don't think the monitors ever had fires lit
My first year I was swab to Laucefield (Trades Monitor) and my second to Robbins (Second Monitor), who had a study, the same that I later had, and for whom I had to make a fire in the Michaelmas term, ensure he had bread for his toast (which he toasted with a fork made in the Manual School), and clean out the fire.
Fortunately we had a coal fire at home, so I was used to making a fire.
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eucsgmrc
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by eucsgmrc »

sejintenej wrote:In fact I don't think the monitors ever had fires lit
Hmmm. Curious. I was in Col A at almost exactly the same time as sejintenej, and I remember nothing of coal carrying in my early years. However, I do think the two studies had their fires lit. Certainly, when, in later years, I occupied one myself, I would enjoy a roaring fire on cold winter's days. We had a large carefully shaped sheet of metal with a handle, which could be held in front of the grate to create a forced draught. That got the fire going quickly and fiercely, and it could be almost too hot to squeeze past the fireplace and get out of the study door. Traditionally, each year's occupant of the study would burn his initials into the wood of the study door in pokerwork. I saw my own initials still there years afterwards, just before one of the big refurbishments.
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by DavidRawlins »

I was in Col A, as a swab, in 1947. I used to clean the fireplace for the second monitor, Ian Murray, but never hauled coal for him.
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ColeridgeA40
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by ColeridgeA40 »

Hi John Wexler
I remember you very well as you used to read to us brats in the Junior Dorm before lights out - each monitor would read on a different night. You introduced me to books I still have, and I'm sure I have a photo of you in The Pirates of Penzance (unscanned as yet) performed by Col A at the Prep Hall.

I was lucky in that I didn't have to swab until year 3 ( LFb); I swabbed for Colin Pinch, senior dayroom Monitor, who'd have not even been a top-tabler. when you were in your final year.

I did actually enjoy coal duties, though sometimes people from Col B would come and empty the scuttle you were filling and take it themselves, as the coal hole was shared with Col B. Others of your year were I think Blythe, Paddington, but I could have been mistaken when I said paddington was the other study holder with Hiner P(?) ...
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J.R.
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by J.R. »

I honestly don't remember coal-scuttle duties when in Coleridge B.
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
eucsgmrc
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by eucsgmrc »

ColeridgeA40 wrote:... you used to read to us brats in the Junior Dorm before lights out - each monitor would read on a different night. You introduced me to books I still have, and I'm sure I have a photo of you in The Pirates of Penzance (unscanned as yet) performed by Col A at the Prep Hall.
Hello Robin Wild! I'm a bit disturbed to think that I might have influenced anybody's literary tastes. My ignorance and insensitivity was monumental in those days (and I can't claim much improvement since).

I do have faint but fond memories of the Pirates of Penzance, and I still have the Major General's hat. I also have a few photos, which you'll find in this set of pictures:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jandsw/se ... 099253537/

This bulletin board has a section for photos where new offerings are always very welcome.If you've got Pirates of Penzance or anything else, do please post it so that we can see.
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by jhopgood »

eucsgmrc wrote: I also have a few photos, which you'll find in this set of pictures:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jandsw/se ... 099253537/
Just looked at the photos of the band 1962 and actually recognise people. P Ledeboer on bass drum, Noel Abel and Paul Barnes on trombone (second row of trombones, (they both went on to play in the NYO)), and the top of my head.

Amazing and thanks
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by ColeridgeA40 »

Re Pirates of Penzance - John Wexler, I arrived in Col A in 1960 which was probably your last year. I also remember Fantle who changed his name to Wade after leaving CH. You read us short stories like "Ali the terrible turk" a one eyed wrestler, and "Neither man nor Dog". I do have the photos of Pirates but not scanned so I'll have to try to get them scanned sometime ( soon).
eucsgmrc
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by eucsgmrc »

ColeridgeA40 wrote:... You read us short stories like "Ali the terrible turk" a one eyed wrestler, and "Neither man nor Dog".
Ah yes. Gerald Kersh. A debased taste, and not very suitable for 11-year-olds. I think I discovered him because Kit Aitken had read us those books in earlier years, but I may have misremembered that. Certainly there were several volumes of Gerald Kersh among the "house library" books that were kept on top of the dayroom lockers.

In those days, Kersh was not very highly regarded, rather as airport novels are seen as easy and trivial nowadays. I gather that critical opinion nowadays takes him much more seriously. So, if it really was Kit who put me on to Gerald Kersh, it leaves the question: was Kit lowbrow and unimaginative, as I thought then? Or was he far more discerning and thoughtful, as I now suspect?
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by Ajarn Philip »

eucsgmrc wrote: So, if it really was Kit who put me on to Gerald Kersh, it leaves the question: was Kit lowbrow and unimaginative, as I thought then? Or was he far more discerning and thoughtful, as I now suspect?
A third possibility exists: you now realise you have more in common than you imagined, therefore he cannot possibly have been lowbrow and unimaginative! :lol:
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by AKAP »

John
I apologise for going off topic, but just wanted to say I enjoyed your other photos on Flikr especially "On the hills- 1970's" they are very evocative of that period and what it was like to take to the hills then. I still enjoy being in the mountains today but maybe not as adventurous as the 70's.

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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by eucsgmrc »

Ajarn Philip wrote:A third possibility exists: you now realise you have more in common than you imagined ...
Well, let me consider what I have in common with Kit.

1. Fond of a pint.
2. Like sailing.
3. Nobody would expect to see me on a bike.
John Wexler
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by eucsgmrc »

AKAP wrote:... I enjoyed your other photos on Flikr especially "On the hills- 1970's" they are very evocative of that period ...
I'm glad you enjoyed them. In case you didn't discover them, there are two more nostalgia mines:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jandsw/se ... 797562261/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jandsw/se ... 351153400/
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Re: So, the underground tunnels...

Post by michael scuffil »

sejintenej wrote: In fact I don't think the monitors ever had fires lit
Surely your memory fails you. I had a study fire in the winter of 1962/63, and in fact my swab and I together kept it going quite illegally for about 6 weeks during the big freeze. I would cover it with ash in the evening, and he would fan the faintly glowing embers in the morning. (I say 'quite illegally' because study fires weren't supposed to be lit until 4.00 pm.) As the chimney would have been smoking, it must have been obvious to anyone that the fire was burning, but no one said anything.

Matron also had to be supplied with coal by the coal-heavers. In ThB at least, this was a trade reserved to seniors. 'Wood-fags' (to collect kindling) were by contrast a punishment, not a trade.
Th.B. 27 1955-63
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