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Did we have half terms?

Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2012 4:58 pm
by Vonny
Talking about school holidays the other day and my mum said "you didn't have half terms when you were at CH did you?" Which got me thinking. Did we? I really can't remember :| The only holidays I remember were the longer ones such as Easter, Xmas, Summer.

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2012 5:40 pm
by Requested Removal 18
Yes we did. I remember contacting my friends at home to let them know when I was coming home. They usually lasted a week. The half term during the Lent Term was always short though - I remember it being from Thursday until Sunday some time in Feb.

My last summer half-term I skived off the first period (HT started at 12.15) and got a lift into Horsham after breakfast. I caught the train to Victoria, took the tube to Liverpool Street and was home in Clacton half an hour BEFORE half term officially started... :lol:

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2012 5:47 pm
by Fjgrogan
I am pretty sure that we didn't have half term holidays in Hertford, just two Long Saturdays a term; of course that may have changed after my time.

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2012 9:03 pm
by michael scuffil
There were certainly no half-terms or long weekends or home leave or anything like it before 1965. Even Bank Holidays were working days if they fell in term time. Good Friday was a sort of Sunday when Easter fell in term-time in 1963.

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2012 11:31 am
by J.R.
michael scuffil wrote:There were certainly no half-terms or long weekends or home leave or anything like it before 1965. Even Bank Holidays were working days if they fell in term time. Good Friday was a sort of Sunday when Easter fell in term-time in 1963.

Quite so, Michael !

The up-side was that the three holidays a year at home were MUCH longer than the state-school holidays.

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2012 1:58 pm
by Mid A 15
I don't remember half terms in the modern sense of a week's holiday but during my time, I don't remember the year, "long weekends" came in whereby we went home on a Thursday or Friday and returned on a Monday or Tuesday.

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight I only lived an hour or two away in London so the logistics were fine for me but I wonder about boys from Cornwall, Yorkshire and Wales to quote just three actual examples.

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2012 3:08 pm
by michael scuffil
J.R. wrote:
The up-side was that the three holidays a year at home were MUCH longer than the state-school holidays.
Yes -- a month each at Christmas and Easter, and nearly 8 weeks in the summer.

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2012 3:09 pm
by pierre
I have a feeling that a long week end was introduced in the summer term to replace the Thursday whole holiday sometime in the late 60s . We used to live in Torquay and my widowed Mother could only get time off to travel up at week ends so the whole holiday was a no-no for parental visits! In the end we moved to the Chichester area which made life considerably easier.

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2012 6:22 pm
by Katharine
I don't remember half terms, but there may have been a long weekend for Whit weekend when I was in the Lower VI, just a vague memory.

I don't think we had any half terms once the four term year started, before then I though Hertford and Horsham had the same term dates, however Michael saying he was at school for Easter in 1963 proves that wrong. I was never at school for Easter - I think my brother was once, sometime in the fifties.

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:59 pm
by fra828
No halfterms, only had one long sat 10am-7pm, once a term, but we were allowed to be taken out on other Saturdays for a shorter time-I think. Probably it was limited to 2 a term max, can't really remember. Those of us who lived a long distance from the school only got the one visit a term, unless there were friends or relatives that lived closer. I do remember the excitement of those long sats- my mum could never get there before noon because of the distance from Dorset, she always stayed till 7pm though, before getting the train back from Hertford East to Liverpool Street. Precious few hours that really flew by- and then the horrible crashing 'back to reality' feeling when the day was over, knowing there were weeks and weeks to go till end of term... :(

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2012 6:09 am
by Angela Woodford
Long Sat! 10am to 7pm!

I was fortunate enough to be a South Londoner who could get home for the day on Long Sat, and my parents always encouraged me to bring home a girl who wasn't going out for the day - maybe her parents couldn't make it, or she lived a long way away.

My father always drove fast into the Square at 9.30 ish, and we perfected the art of the quick getaway. Yay! Incredibly, we were never stopped and never In Trouble for this.

And then, as fra828 describes, the "crashing back to reality" feeling on getting back again, after a day outside in the real world.... Weeks and weeks to go, indeed!

Re: Did we have half terms?

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2012 9:16 am
by Fjgrogan
Long Sats were a rather different experience for us. We didn't own a car and my parents struggled to raise the train fares for themselves and my younger brother and sister to get to Hertford, so we certainly couldn't afford to travel further afield; we used to spend the whole day mooching around Hertford. There was a list of places like Christine's and the Shrewsbury Arms where we were permitted to have lunch, all of which were beyond our means, so we found a tiny cafe near St Andrew's church which did good cheap food (reminiscent of lorry drivers' diners!) - I remember having to check up and down the street to make sure that nobody saw us going in! Later in my school career my grandfather bought a car and used to lend it to us for Long Sats which gave much more scope. Sometimes my grandmother would come too. I remember one occasion when she was in the back of the car when the siren went off to call out the volunteer fire brigade - it was the old air raid siren - she nearly jumped out of her skin!!

Were we really allowed out until 7 pm? I remember my parents saying that they used to rush to catch the Six Five Special out of Hertford East, which suggests that we had to be back in by 6 o'clock. Perhaps it was different summer and winter?