Saluting

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...

Moderator: Moderators

Martin
LE (Little Erasmus)
Posts: 67
Joined: Wed Nov 14, 2012 6:11 am
Real Name: Bill Hurst

Re: Saluting

Post by Martin »

In the late 40s, as part of the wartime lack of male teachers, there were still some females remaining from the war years. Two taught the 3rd form, Mrs Hurst had 3B (a true scholar and elderly widow). Another was Miss Ellen .... who taught 3A. (I have currently forgotten her surname - perhaps someone will remind me of it, or I'll recall it later) She was youngish (under 35?), moderately attractive and finally married (a part-time staff member?). Certainly she was called "Sir" in class, but perhaps that was because she taught only the youngest of new squits, who were overawed and very impressionable. They usually did what they were told.

Saluting existed then, but most persons tried to avoid it, mostly by politely "not noticing" the lady who was supposed to be saluted.
Fitzsadou
LE (Little Erasmus)
Posts: 60
Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2012 8:06 pm
Real Name: Tom Barnes

Re: Saluting

Post by Fitzsadou »

The third form teacher mentioned above was Miss Margery Eller who married Mr Gerrish, one of the cello teachers. She left CH soon after her marrriage.
User avatar
postwarblue
Deputy Grecian
Posts: 409
Joined: Mon May 21, 2007 12:12 pm
Real Name: Robert Griffiths
Location: Havant

Re: Saluting

Post by postwarblue »

Mrs Hurst taiught me in LFB 1947-48. She had a small puppet stage where we put on Richard III using pasteboard puppets we had cut out and put on wire handles. It was a game to chew up a piece of paper into a pellet and see if one could pea-shoot it into her hairnet. So we learned a bit about ballistics too.
'Oh blest retirement, friend to life's decline'
keibat
LE (Little Erasmus)
Posts: 63
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2011 2:24 pm
Real Name: Keith Battarbee (BaB 1955-Xmas 1962)

Re: Saluting

Post by keibat »

michael scuffil wrote:
JBH wrote:My mother 'Ma Massen' loved being called Sir. I can't remember her being saluted in the school grounds, perhaps this was only outside the "ring fence".
...
I don't remember ever saluting your mother or any other member of staff, and I certainly didn't call her 'sir' (although she never taught me). But I didn't call Nell Todd, Rhona Hurst or Olive Peto 'sir' either. I always thought this was a myth.
The idea of calling dear Nell Todd – that incarnation of the Bakhtinian carnivalesque, the safety valve of privileged (in several senses) bohemianism in a rigidly hierarchical micro-society – 'Sir' is utterly deliciously absurd. The refuge of being able to hang out at irregular hours and work out Stuff through art in Nell's Art School (even if one wasn't particularly gifted, which I wasn't) was on a different plane of being entirely than the sense of intellectual freedom with Michael Cherniavsky (my housemaster) or of the Music Society meeting down at Stammerham in David Herbert's house. And I also cherish memories of listening to Nell's ?goddaughter (if I remember right, Nell was the daughter of a Highland laird, and Scottish Episcopalian by background??), Jacqueline Dupré, practising on the cello on the balcony overlooking the Art School from Nell's flat. It's difficult not to treat Dupré as a cult figure, with her crippling by MS and being dumped by Daniel Barenboim, but back then, I just remember the exquisite beauty of her playing. Not that we (or at least I) ever got to interact with her.
michael scuffil
Button Grecian
Posts: 1612
Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2007 12:53 pm
Real Name: michael scuffil
Location: germany

Re: Saluting

Post by michael scuffil »

keibat wrote:and work out Stuff through art in Nell's Art School (even if one wasn't particularly gifted, which I wasn't)
Keith's modesty notwithstanding, I do have an original Battarbee hanging in my house. And while it may not make 90 million at auction, it's not at all bad. It depicts Itchingfield church, and was one of a set of six depicting buildings in and around CH. Has anyone seen any of the others? (About 35 x 25 cm. Orange, green & black poster paint)
Th.B. 27 1955-63
User avatar
J.R.
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15835
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2005 4:53 pm
Real Name: John Rutley
Location: Dorking, Surrey

Re: Saluting

Post by J.R. »

keibat wrote:
michael scuffil wrote:
JBH wrote:My mother 'Ma Massen' loved being called Sir. I can't remember her being saluted in the school grounds, perhaps this was only outside the "ring fence".
...
I don't remember ever saluting your mother or any other member of staff, and I certainly didn't call her 'sir' (although she never taught me). But I didn't call Nell Todd, Rhona Hurst or Olive Peto 'sir' either. I always thought this was a myth.
The idea of calling dear Nell Todd – that incarnation of the Bakhtinian carnivalesque, the safety valve of privileged (in several senses) bohemianism in a rigidly hierarchical micro-society – 'Sir' is utterly deliciously absurd. The refuge of being able to hang out at irregular hours and work out Stuff through art in Nell's Art School (even if one wasn't particularly gifted, which I wasn't) was on a different plane of being entirely than the sense of intellectual freedom with Michael Cherniavsky (my housemaster) or of the Music Society meeting down at Stammerham in David Herbert's house. And I also cherish memories of listening to Nell's ?goddaughter (if I remember right, Nell was the daughter of a Highland laird, and Scottish Episcopalian by background??), Jacqueline Dupré, practising on the cello on the balcony overlooking the Art School from Nell's flat. It's difficult not to treat Dupré as a cult figure, with her crippling by MS and being dumped by Daniel Barenboim, but back then, I just remember the exquisite beauty of her playing. Not that we (or at least I) ever got to interact with her.

I was lucky enough to have 'interacted' with her ! We made pots together in the art school, with help from the lovely Nell on one or two occasions. Jacqueline was a charming, sweet and VERY amusing girl, who sadly, was taken from us far far too early.
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
User avatar
jhopgood
Button Grecian
Posts: 1884
Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2004 6:26 pm
Real Name: John Hopgood
Location: Benimeli, Alicante

Re: Saluting

Post by jhopgood »

michael scuffil wrote:
keibat wrote:and work out Stuff through art in Nell's Art School (even if one wasn't particularly gifted, which I wasn't)
Keith's modesty notwithstanding, I do have an original Battarbee hanging in my house. And while it may not make 90 million at auction, it's not at all bad. It depicts Itchingfield church, and was one of a set of six depicting buildings in and around CH. Has anyone seen any of the others? (About 35 x 25 cm. Orange, green & black poster paint)
I had one which from memory had three black crosses on it.
I either left it on my study wall along with a lion skin, or it got lost when I went abroad to live.
Barnes B 25 (59 - 66)
Post Reply