Just stumbled upon this site.......sounds like fun...

Share your memories and stories from the Hertford Christ's Hospital School, which closed in 1985, when the two schools integrated to the Horsham site....

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icomefromalanddownunder
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Re: Just stumbled upon this site.......sounds like fun...

Post by icomefromalanddownunder »

chaosriddenyears wrote:I can't imagine going on a shopping trip with many of the staff at Hertford - Chemi T for example?
Oh, it would have been marvellous!

Off the train and straight into the nearest pub, then sitting around coughing over rollies and knocking back the Guinness while we belly laughed over lab antics and life in general. As the time for the return train approached, reality would kick in: rush into closest shop, buy first thing that came to hand, then back to the grim reality of life behind the red brick walls.

As for spending time with SWSNBN: I'd rather have stuck blunt pins into my eye balls and sawn at my wrists with the back of a fish knife.

Oh, oh, I need to go for a lie down ...............................
Caroline Payne (nee Barrett)
Hertford 6.20 1965-70

Adelaide, dear Adelaide; where the water is foul, but the wines more than make up for it.
chaosriddenyears
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Re: Just stumbled upon this site.......sounds like fun...

Post by chaosriddenyears »

Yes, you're right about Chemi T - I was thinking of her bombarding the Selfridge shoppers with random objects, but of course there was another side to her as well!

Weeeeeell - what about Queenie?
Shoe shops perhaps? She always had very elegant shoes I seem to remember.
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Re: Just stumbled upon this site.......sounds like fun...

Post by fra828 »

Angela Woodford wrote:Miss J Richards even. I have a strange idea that the J stood for Jocelyn.

Lunching with Carolynn (Head Girl 1971) the other week, the shrieks of laughter were interrupted by a "kind Miss Richards" story from Carolynn. Well, kind-ish. I'm sure she won't mind me repeating it.

I think it was 1970? SWSNBN had summoned us (UV upwards) to tell us that Singer were having a dressmaking competition, and that it would be excellent if some of us entered with some sort of special garment. I can still see her angry little eyes and quivering jowls as she made the pronouncement, offering to be available for advice if anyone didn't know what to make.

Carolynn was not only a super mathemetician, a brilliant pianist, a supercool peacemaker and Head Girl, naturellement, but a terrific dressmaker.And my friend! XXX! She made a lovely Vogue Difficult trousers and tunic in cream jersey, and made it to the semi-finals - to be held in a smart hotel in Birmingham.

SWSNBN wangled from DR an allowance to get Carolynn's accessories for this catwalk appearance, took Carolynn to Oxford Street for a shopping trip, and, when they just couldn't find a perfect silk scarf (to be tossed nonchalantly over one shoulder), SWSNBN bought a length of co-ordinating silk and sewed the scarf herself. All day, as they trolled about the shops, SWSNBN had been sweet! chatty! and positively girlicious!

Can you believe this? That awful dragon woman, who seemed to have been born with a grudge against the rest of humanity? She actually could be nice.

I personally felt terribly sorry for anyone who could be that dreadful, and felt that maybe life had been hard for her.

Dinahcat, look in Hertford Memories, the "School Needlework" thread if you want to read some dreadful accounts....
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Re: Just stumbled upon this site.......sounds like fun...

Post by fra828 »

It's nice to hear this kind, human side of Miss.R. I too feel sorry for anyone who seems that bitter, but there's no excuse for taking it out on vulnerable schoolgirls.
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Re: Just stumbled upon this site.......sounds like fun...

Post by Angela Woodford »

The years have gone by :roll: and apart from an odd burst of indignation here and there I can forgive SWSNBN.

I can see her in my mind's eye so vividly - stout, angry, vitriolic, rude... but she must have been such a lonely woman. Another memory - it's just come back to me. We were going on a crocodile walk superintended by SWSNBN, who seemed in her usual bitter-and-twisted fault-finding mode. I was walking with Elizabeth Scott from 8's, and we were chatting about the colours we liked - different shades of pink in particular. Elizabeth was trying to describe her favourite. "Shocking pink!" she said. "I love it!"

SWSNBN stomped up behind us, and heard the comment.

Elizabeth turned round and said, rather bravely "Shocking pink - do you like the colour, Miss Richards? It's a pink with some blue in it..."

SWSNBN considered this, and to our great amazement, her face lit up totally with a wide reminiscent smile. Just for that moment she looked totally transformed.

"Oh yes, Elizabeth" she said. "I know just the pink you mean :) ".

Then she rearranged her face into its usual grim expression, and walked on ahead.

It was as if she'd actually had a happy memory. Extraordinary.

I wish I had some good memories of Wendy Lee and Co., DR, Miss Taverner; all of whom bring on fury and resentment even now when mentioned on the Forum - even now. What am I like? :?

Miss Jukes was dreadful to me - but then, I must have seemed the most unlikely 'A' level student of Home Economics and a terrible nightmare for her to teach in a specialised subject. Personality clash time!

Always remembering Miss Morrison with loving affection.
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""
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Re: Just stumbled upon this site.......sounds like fun...

Post by englishangel »

I believe it was called Schiaparelli pink at one time.

My only ever designer purchase was a raw silk long jacket in this colour which I wore to Royal Ascot. I wore it over a navy blue lacy dress with navy accessories. I had long hair at the time but with the hat I wanted it tidy so I found a pink flower hairtie which I 'painted' with the same colour nail varnish and tied my hair back. When we got home and watched the fashion bit on the TV Geoff Banks commented on the 'older woman' (thanks) who showed all the young things with their hair blowing wild what could be done with a bit of imagination.

I think Gerrie (gma) is wearing a hat this colour (and navy) in her avatar pic. It is a very uplifting colour.
"If a man speaks, and there isn't a woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"
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Re: Just stumbled upon this site.......sounds like fun...

Post by chaosriddenyears »

A few years ago I saw a dress in a really expensive shop in Vienna (I live in Austria) which was this pink combined with a bright orange. Never in my life would I have believed that these two colours could be combined successfully, but it was pure silk, and the cut, design and quality of the print was absolutely stunning , and if I had been a tiny weeny bit younger - and had the money - I would have bought it.

A long way from those nighties we had to sew at Hertford with the little flowers on them - and the traycloth! And which 6th former was it who found me weeping into the macks in the cloakroom because I had made such a mess of mine? She bore it off and gave it back to me in an awesomely respectable state! I was so grateful.
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