Quick questions and (maybe) answers Hertford Memories thread

[sejintenej]

In 2's we always had to line up in house number order so you always sat next to the same person.

Amongst the boys it tended to be height order within houses. We had to march just about everywhere with the tallest in the front rank gradually getting smaller until the last rank were the runts of the litter.

[Katharine]

In 6s we had a chapel list pinned up each term which allocated you to a certain position. I never compiled such a list and never understood any particular logic to it! (Sad to say, conformist little so and so that I was, I never challenged it!)

When I started at the school we marched to breakfast and lunch each day (except Sunday breakfast). We were in seniority order with the juniors at the front, behind two House Mons. It meant that as we arrived in the dining hall we sat down in the order we had marched in, and then the two Mons solemnly walked to the top of the table. Later we only marched for Sunday lunch.

[midget]

You mean you were allowed to stroll in an undisciplined way? How did they ever allow that?

Did anyone ever do potato de-eyeing duty? Get up early, have a cup of tea, goto kitchens where the machine-peeled spuds had been festering in a cauldron of water all night, then take the eyes out, before finally being allowed to have breakfast.

[Katharine]

You mean you were allowed to stroll in an undisciplined way? How did they ever allow that?

It was after the square had been surfaced with a reddish 'tarmac'. I think 'they' thought we were wearing the tarmac down too quickly as we always marched the same routes.

Did anyone ever do potato de-eyeing duty? Get up early, have a cup of tea, goto kitchens where the machine-peeled spuds had been festering in a cauldron of water all night, then take the eyes out, before finally being allowed to have breakfast.

I didn't do that duty but I had to work in the kitchens every Sunday for about six months as part of my DofE. I was the first from 6s to do Gold so had not realised that you had to get in early to get "Service to the Community" outside the school walls. You really did not want to see the school meat mincing machine in action.

[sejintenej]

You mean you were allowed to stroll in an undisciplined way? How did they ever allow that?

Did anyone ever do potato de-eyeing

I've heard of Holy Mackerel but to actually create Holy Spuds takes some doing.

[englishangel]

I thought spud-bashing on a Sunday mroning went round the houses in turn. I probably did it 3 times while at Hertford.

[Alexandra Thrift]

Great replies ! Thanks everybody.I apologise for starting a thread and then disappearing for my birthday celebrations (and you remembered Caroline...thanks (icomefromthelanddownunder)).

I must go to bed now....but will return asap to comment on some of the posts which were v.interesting and reminded me of many things.

I had forgotten all about SPUD BASHING !! There was something quite eerie about that huge school kitchen early in the morning,with the clock ticking and the hum of the refridgeration. I hardly ever went in there.

Midget was surprised to hear about the "walking in an undisciplined manner" .......and I was reminded that one of the positive aspects of wearing "velours" (winter) and "panamas" (summer) on Sundays was that they frequently blew-away and we had to break ranks from the Sunday walk crocodile and chase them. I have a recollection of encouraging my hats to fly away ...... small variations like the ensuing chase made life a little less predictable and tedious.

I notice in the Hertford section of "The Blue" and in one of the tributes to DR, the Sunday hats and even chapel caps were described as "hated".I didn't really hate them....they were quaint and intriguing.I liked the feel of the velour and the weave and exotic name of the Panamas.They were only abolished a couple of years or maybe less before DR retired.

I agree about the Infirmary collection of Dennis Wheatley novels being scarey.I wouldn't read them now either....but scared myself half to death reading them then !!

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I notice in the Hertford section of "The Blue" and in one of the tributes to DR, the Sunday hats and even chapel caps were described as "hated".I didn't really hate them....they were quaint and intriguing.I liked the feel of the velour and the weave and exotic name of the Panamas.They were only abolished a couple of years or maybe less before DR retired.

I seem to remember using our chapel caps to catch frogs - see frog, chuck chapel cap over the top of it, watch chapel cap hop away - or is my imagination playing tricks?

[J.R.]

I notice in the Hertford section of "The Blue" and in one of the tributes to DR, the Sunday hats and even chapel caps were described as "hated".I didn't really hate them....they were quaint and intriguing.I liked the feel of the velour and the weave and exotic name of the Panamas.They were only abolished a couple of years or maybe less before DR retired.

I seem to remember using our chapel caps to catch frogs - see frog, chuck chapel cap over the top of it, watch chapel cap hop away - or is my imagination playing tricks?

Was this on the same field trip as collecting magic mushrooms, I ask myself ?

[englishangel]

Probably, and as they were in 6's they probably tried to kiss the frogs too.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Probably, and as they were in 6's they probably tried to kiss the frogs too.

I'm still trying, but, sadly, only ever manage to catch the old ugly ones.

Magic mushies? Don't need them: I have a lab full of chemicals at my disposal

[Angela Woodford]

Does anyone else remember..........?

1. Yuri Gagarin's ( first man in space...Russian) framed photo and Autograph in the hallway of the Science Block,Hertford and how/why it got there? What happened to it?

No memory of YG!


2.Saying "Quis or Quiz !" and holding up unwanted items to give away ?

Yes! If you wanted the item you answered "Ego!" quickly as you could.

3. Any other strange CH language that we used at Hertford ( "Square bashing" , "Ashbourne hats" and "sticking and licking" have already been mentioned) ?

When you didn't want to do something you could say "Veins!" Or "Veinites!" I think this might derive from an older use of "Fain"

4.Drinking hot "Milo" and inhaling sticky black goo dissolved in a stoneware pot full of boiling water in the Infirmary ?

I was filling inhalation pots with Friars Balsam and boiling water as late as 1973 as part of pre-op procedure!

5. Reading the collected works of Dennis Wheatley including "The Devil Rides Out"....... in the infirmary ?

I was always in the annexe.. no Dennis Wheatley.

6. An ancient book (also in the infirmary library)full of sepia photos of a round- the- world type ship expedition including photos of a native South Sea islander ( female) covered in thick hair ?

Ditto! Too late for the poor thing to book a waxing/ laser hair removal treatment!

7.The flower arranging and miniature garden competition ,dutifully organised and judged annually by DR ?

Headcorn Gardeners' Society and the WI still do this. (ButI tend to avoid the WI members, having been caught at their Notice Board changing notification of a lecture from "Banking" to "Bonking".)

etc etc

Please add your quick CH Hertford memories to this thread....and any answers forthcoming.

BTW.......I am reminded after the seeing the pics of the Dining Hall staircase in the recently delivered "Old Blue"........to ask Who was Sir Harry Vanderpant ? ( late school Benefactor and close friend of DR I know, but what else is known about him ?) What happened to his bronze bust (as seen in aforementioned photo and remembered by Munch ,as a target for the wet dishcloth as we descended the stairs from lunch.) ?

I do wonder what happened to that bronze bust? Alex, do you remember desecrating that bronze called "Girlhood" in the Art School?

I really enjoyed the Hertford edition of The Old Blue. As soon as I saw the school gates I fossicked into my copy! I should love to walk around the site again.

Munch

[helen]

I remember 2,3. As for Sir Harry, while I was at the school he donated the money for the new school hall, and also for a screen tv. The latter was only available to sixth formers and only for things like Wimbledon or
to do with cricket. Needless to say, I didn't benefit from any of this. but DR got grotesquely coquettish in a bizarre kind of way when he was around for celebrity donor stuff.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I remember 2,3. As for Sir Harry, while I was at the school he donated the money for the new school hall, and also for a screen tv. The latter was only available to sixth formers and only for things like Wimbledon or
to do with cricket. Needless to say, I didn't benefit from any of this. but DR got grotesquely coquettish in a bizarre kind of way when he was around for celebrity donor stuff.

Yes, well, having read 'Half To Remember', I'm not surprised

I dread to think what her reaction to finding one of us in the bedroom of an older man would have been, yet she blithely recorded just such behaviour on her own part.

Happy days

[Mrs C.]

Alex, do you remember desecrating that bronze called "Girlhood" in the Art School?

Is this the one which is in Court Room now?