'Away from the Bombs and the Boys' - available to order

[Angela Woodford]

The Mason Pearson website will give you the prices....and you can buy them on Amazon.
Mine is a Mason Pearson nylon and bristle 'Junior'. Pink. The rubber is rather perished, now, though...
Curiously, the handle is covered in bite marks - I must have chewed on it often. Wonder why and when?

Yes, right, Kerren, I checked the prices.



A brush I once coveted, the Bristle and Nylon Junior Medium BN2 is £39.

The Pure Bristle Extra Large B1 is £69.50

Bite on that one!

[J.R.]

The Mason Pearson website will give you the prices....and you can buy them on Amazon.
Mine is a Mason Pearson nylon and bristle 'Junior'. Pink. The rubber is rather perished, now, though...
Curiously, the handle is covered in bite marks - I must have chewed on it often. Wonder why and when?

Yes, right, Kerren, I checked the prices.



A brush I once coveted, the Bristle and Nylon Junior Medium BN2 is £39.

The Pure Bristle Extra Large B1 is £69.50

Bite on that one!

I think you'll find that's a TOOTHBRUSH !

[englishangel]

I am having trouble today and a post of mine has disappeared so here it is again.

The girl I described as having her hair cropped was not shaved, she just had a 'schoolgirl' bob after having hair down to her waist.

I offered to buy my daughter (who has hair as beautiful as any haircare ad) a Mason Pearson brush but she said "why bother?"

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I am fascinated by the collective amnesia in this thread. There certainly were those dreadful ( normal) infestations when we were there and in deed the tooth combs got used. Interestingly as I remember it the creatures did not seem able to jump the hierarchical gap between the more junior and senior parts of CH. My memory was that it seemed to stop at the UIV -I wonder if we just all got less able to tolerate physical closeness? The treatment was pretty brutal - shaved heads. Not nice at all.

I caught them (from my younger sister) while at primary school. I well remember Mum's embarrassment, and that she wandered up and down outside the pharmacy (on New Park Road, Munch), waiting until there were no other customers, before she was game enough to enter and purchase whatever the stuff we were treated with was.

Apparently the Headmistress of the Infants' School had told Mum to shave our heads, but, fortunately, she didn't agree. We were doused with some highly toxic-smelling stuff and made to walk around home for an entire day with towels around our shoulders to catch the dead nits.

Much less social stigma about them in Oz these days. My poor daughter caught them a couple of times, but they always chose to avoid Mitch's locks. Sensible creatures.

[Angela Woodford]

But JR! Kerren records, rather fascinatingly, that her Mason Pearson (Junior, pink) has a handle covered in bitemarks!

New Park Road, Caroline *sighs*! (Miss Morley was so proud of us!) I remember where the pharmacy was. Or rather,
chemist shop, innit?

Think I'm going to have to save up before I can join the Cloakroom Elite! It's the memory of the sound of the brush in action that makes me feel so nostalgic.

When reading how Audrey's loving family supplied her with all the stuff she needed for CH, I wondered if her Mason Pearson was a special present?

Love from Munch

[Jo]

I received my copy of "Blue Skirts into Blue Stockings" this morning - double quick time; very impressed! Haven't started reading it yet, but someone mentioned the drawings and I agree, they are truly delightful. I shall enjoy leafing through it, and will bring it along with me on 5th April in case anyone else takes a look. There are still several good value used copies on Amazon.

[kerrensimmonds]

I have just bought, on eBay, a copy of Browning's poems (volume 1) presented to Louie Angus as the Robertson Prize in 1925. I got it for a ridiculous price - given that, as a first edition, it is apparently worth £115 or more (or so claimed the vendor). I just wanted it because it was hers... but I worry that she might no longer be alive. I must check - though I would have thought that there would have been some publicity if she had gone to higher things.
And there is an amazing photograph of girls emerging from the Vestry door in Chapel, in the 1920's/1930's, which is part of the display at the Hertford Museum (which opens on 19 March). It's from a strange angle so at first glance it might not even be our Chapel.. but it is, and the person overseeing the exodus of girls from the door is none other than Norah Craig, Headmistress 1922-42.
I have been asked to verify a number of photographs which the Museum Curator wishes to use - this includes an incredible sequence of photos from inside Alexandra House (i.e. 2's), taken three weeks ago. I double checked them with my 60th birthday guests last weekend, and it is Very Spooky to see spaces in which one spent ones formative years now put to other use, but still recognisable. Including brass hooks on the dorm. windows........and the cellar steps.. and.. and... and....