Sorry for the delay in responding (and thanks for the prompt on Facebook, Angela!) - still have problems accessing the forum via broadband so this is a periodic visit on 3G.Angela Woodford wrote:The girl who might be able to confirm this is Jo, who I think was assimilated in 1970 -Jo? - and I will cautiously post a HOGOF message. I say "cautious" because I remember the cherry red has some particularly unappealing memory for her? Still in the interests of historical research?icomefromalanddownunder wrote:I think that I had a red blazer, in which case they were introduced before 1971, as I left at the end of summer term 1970.
I can't definitely remember when the cherry reds were introduced but just working it out from other memories - they were the combined work of DR and Miss Richards. As the latter left in 1971 at the latest, it must have been before then.
I was confirmed in either 1969 or 1970 (will go and check later when I can be bothered to get out of the armchair ) and one of the reasons for my unhappy memories of the cherry reds was a tart and unpleasant encounter with Dickie on the way out of Sunday morning early communion. I was still in a navy blazer because I'd been told a cherry red would have to be ordered specially for me. Dickie pounced on me and demanded to know why I was still in navy, and then seemed to blame me for the fact that the cherry red hadn't arrived yet. I suspect the ordering had been overlooked because I was summoned for a re-measuring the following week and it duly arrived some time later. Even at that age I thought it odd that someone who professed to be a committed Christian, and who had just emerged from Communion, could be so gratuitously spiteful and nasty, with such evident relish.
So anyway - rant over - that would make it around 1970 - I'm not sure I can get it more accurate than that. I started at Hertford in 1967 and we definitely still wore our navy blazers on Sundays for a couple of years after that.