Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

AAAh. MidB didn't have anyone in their year who was good enough? This happened in my GE year when a House captain was imported for a term as the housemaster couldn't decide who to appoint and was obviously nervous. The guy was sitting OXBRIDGE so was there jsut for the term but it sure did cause a stir as he came from MidA!!!

Back to the topic Chaz....did anyone have Tim Bryant or Stan Eason as a French teacher? I thinks Stan may still be at CH as head of the ML department now...he came to CH under Peter Farrar and then left but came back again. Tim Bryant was an Old Blue who taught at Worth school a while...I had both during dep/grecian years...Both were on top of their game...

CHAZ wrote:Back to the topic Chaz....did anyone have Tim Bryant or Stan Eason as a French teacher? I thinks Stan may still be at CH as head of the ML department now...he came to CH under Peter Farrar and then left but came back again. Tim Bryant was an Old Blue who taught at Worth school a while...I had both during dep/grecian years...Both were on top of their game...

Senior Drum Major in the 60's if memory serves !

Ajarn Philip wrote:I went from Col A to be House Captain of Mid B. In a nutshell.

Couldn't you afford a bike ?

CHAZ wrote:the other Grecian was Andy Stobbart who actually sat next to you or very close by.

(Loved the website which I had seen before when organising the 20 year reunion which you unfortunately couldn't make...Look forward to seeing your entries in the months to come)

Aha, Stobbs! I was trying to remember who else it was.

I'm a long term lurker on the forum, and was finally prodded into registering by this thread. Unfortunately, having been gainfully employed in education for quite a few years now, I find it almost impossible to travel to the UK during termtime (plus personal commitments, blah, blah). As a result, I haven't been back to CH for years.

But back on topic, another memory of Pete Farrer is how he was always going on about his son ("Big lad, big lad") and his holidays.

As a teacher, I've had a tendency to try to stick to what I regard as professional standards in terms of lessons starting and finishing on time (compared to other colleagues who've had more flexible ideas on the matter), and I've sometimes wondered if this isn't a reaction to experiences like the laid-back (if not horizontal) Farrer approach to timetables.

I attribute to Louis Bardou's strict influence my tendency to slip into the imperfect subjunctive in the most inappropriate conversational situations. And I've kept the habit of learning vocab lists (although Thank God there are no more Louis tests).

Your'e absolutely right about him going on about his sons Jon and mat. Holiday destination was Calvados if I remember well.

As for the LB vocab lists they were really good as we learnt so many useful and useless words...my favourite was a combine harvester...moissoneuse batteuse...never used it but still locked in the brain!

I think we had two tests a week right?

By the way, geraint, what does Vièr Bliu mean and what are you teaching?

CHAZ wrote:Back to the topic Chaz....did anyone have Tim Bryant or Stan Eason as a French teacher? I thinks Stan may still be at CH as head of the ML department now...he came to CH under Peter Farrar and then left but came back again. Tim Bryant was an Old Blue who taught at Worth school a while...I had both during dep/grecian years...Both were on top of their game...

Tim Bryant was a tutor in MaB when I was first at CH... he had the unfortunate nick name of Plug (after his ears and his lookalike in the Bash Street Kids)

Steve Eason (not Stan) is still at CH - he taught me French at GCSE...

At a guess, I'd say it means Old Blue - but is it Jersey French?

Great Plum wrote:
Tim Bryant was a tutor in MaB when I was first at CH... ..

He was at CH when I was there too & his eldest daughter was in 2's & then BaB with me.

CHAZ wrote: By the way, geraint, what does Vièr Bliu mean and what are you teaching?

As already guessed, the totally unimaginative screenname does indeed mean Old Blue in Jèrriais, and Jèrriais is what I have been teaching for the past few years (after years of TESOL, with sidetrips into French, Russian and environmental education).

My A-level choices were Russian, French and Art - and I got subjected to a little arm-twisting to forgo Art for something more "academic", but I stuck to my guns and, as things have developed, my dual art and linguistic careers have overlapped at various points, with children's book illustrations and now designing textbooks, teaching materials, posters etc for the Jèrriais teaching programme:



At CH, one of my contacts with the culture of home while I was away in the UK during term was my mother cutting out articles in Jèrriais from the newspaper for me. I remember lending some of them to Pete Farrer.

To get slightly back on topic, I carried on with French (and Russian) in the first year of my degree course, and I think I'd got a good grounding in grammar at CH which stood me in good stead. Nevertheless I dropped French after first year Prelims and took courses and a paper in Czech instead. Despite the best efforts of all involved, I've never really got into Racine, Corneille and that crowd. And I've never read another word of Hervé Bazin after "Vipère au poing" despite all of Uncle Pete Farrer's enthusiasm.

Vipère au Poing - Bazin
Polyeucte - Corneille
Les Mouches - Sartre

How we suffered Vièr Bliu...there should have been one other text but it escapes me now...do you remember?
I was brave enough to do a BA and MA in French so had the literature really thrust down my throat...
Never saw Bazin again...Phew

CHAZ wrote: there should have been one other text but it escapes me now...do you remember?

Andromaque - Racine. We did this one in less depth as a back-up. It provided another light on the figure of Orestes in French lit in comparison and contrast to Les Mouches.

Surprisingly, I was very much affected by my exposure to Sartre and still refer to existentialist principles in some situations - especially in politics. Despite that, as a general rule, I'd say that existentialist philosophy is the last thing any teenager needs having inflicted on them!

And where did Don Juan and La Porte étroite come in?

Moving the brow down a literary notch, having read Exbrayat's "Le Clan Morembert" for AO Further French Studies, I'm still an occasional reader of Exbrayat (a quick check of the "to read" bookshelves shows that "La Petite fille à la fenêtre" and "Plaies et bosses" await my attention).

I think the Don Juan and Porte Etrote were in our Deps year with Steve Eason and Faz
Don't remember this AO title though, Geraint. R U sure?

CHAZ wrote:I think the Don Juan and Porte Etrote were in our Deps year with Steve Eason and Faz
Don't remember this AO title though, Geraint. R U sure?

There was a choice of any book (I think) for oral discussion. I went for the Exbrayat. I can't remember what other people went for.

Gosh, memories. We did La Porte Etroite for A Level in 1975. I wanted to kill the whole drippy lot of them. I much preferred Le Misanthrope and Britannicus. Loved La Peste, but then discovered at uni that I didn't much like C20 lit after all - much preferred Moliere, Racine et al. Sorry