New Forum Section - Hertford Memories

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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Angela Woodford
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Post by Angela Woodford »

Yes!!

The Julia was Julia Page. Caroline, Susan, you and me.

I really ought to do useful things now. It's terrible, how addictive this Forum is.

But I've just remembered the Forbidden Greenline Bus (single storey) had a stop just to the right of the school gates as you were facing outwards. So if anyone had tried to catch it there they'd have been instantly spotted.

Still niggling about the name of the Hertford small department store, and maybe... Graveson's??

Munch
"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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J.R.
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Post by J.R. »

Up until the demise of the green-line service, sometime in the late 70's/early 80's, Dorking bus garage was home to three green line services. 713, 714, and 715. (No 715A which I assume went elsewhere from the Hertford area).

All three services were long distance and travelled through central London to destinations that my ageing brain has forgotton, other than to say one of them, the 714 I believe, which terminated at Luton.
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cj
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Many happs

Post by cj »

"Many Happs"

today to all house numbers 11 !! Image

Vonny and I were 'many happs' yesterday.

PS Munch - your photo/slides are just brilliant. Twenty years on and my colleagues and I looked just the same. I'm going on a picture hunt at my parents' house today. Fingers crossed I can find something. Then spend another twenty years scanning and fiddling.
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englishangel
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Re: Forbidden bus route

Post by englishangel »

Angela Woodford wrote:Richard, there's the bus!

Doesn't look like we'd "pick up an infection" on that vehicle. Much more likely on the awful old train to Liverpool Street.

I only travelled by train a couple of times. One time in the V1 form with Jill Wright and Susan Lintott - why I don't know. As soon as we'd left Hertford East, out came what make-up we'd got, modification to uniform was accomplished and hair was loosened.

Munch
I remember a couple of us stripping down to our underwear to change in the back of a cab to remove all traces of CH before we got to Charing Cross, gave the cabbie an eyeful.

Didn't someone once get caught on the train in make-up and have to take it all off again before Liverpool St?
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Post by Mid A 15 »

icomefromalanddownunder wrote:
Katharine wrote:As far as I recall, the 715 was the long distance (Greenline) bus so you could get really far away!!
Yes, indeed, but would it have gone to Dorking? A direct Greenline from Hertford to Dorking seems a little unlikely.

Now, having listened to the Railway Announcer at Tulse Hill for the two years that I spent at St Martin's, I know that the way to Dorking is/was by train via Streatham Hill, Streatham, Streatham Common, ........... Ashtead, Leatherhead and Box Hill :)
The much loved lamented Greenline buses used to run on all sorts of routes which defied rhyme or reason!

The 701 and 702 routes both commenced in Gravesend, Kent and would run via Shooters Hill to Ascot and Sunningdale. I can't remember which was which all these years on!

I suppose the aim of the Greenlines may have been to service what is now the area covered by the M25.
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Post by Mid A 15 »

:roll: appeared twice for some unknown reason!
Ma A, Mid A 65 -72
Angela Woodford
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In the back of a taxi!

Post by Angela Woodford »

englishangel wrote:I remember a couple of us stripping down to our underwear to change in the back of a cab to remove all traces of CH before we got to Charing Cross, gave the cabbie an eyeful.
You never did, Mary? An act of determination and daring!

Full of admiration here!

Now my belief that Valerie Willams was the best-behaved girl is even more firm. You wouldn't get Valerie Williams down to her lingerie in the back of a taxi. :P

And who was your companion, pray?

And you've just tutted at me for hands-in-pockets... :wink:

Munch
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Post by englishangel »

I think it must have been Pam ?? end of the summer term 1970.

Thinking back, we didn't go to Charing Cross, we went to Knightsbridge and had our hair cut at the Vidal Sassoon school as mentioned elsewhere. I have a picture somewhere wearing a bright orange jumbo cord button through pinafore dress (very short) and navy silk bouse (school needlework). The pic is in black and white unfortunately 'cos you could see that orange dress for miles.
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icomefromalanddownunder
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Post by icomefromalanddownunder »

Angela Woodford wrote:Yes!!

The Julia was Julia Page. Caroline, Susan, you and me.


Munch


Yes, I was one of them, and wasn't Bun with us?

Tanner's Hatch - what a great name :)

I remember other trips, but may be confusing some with my VIth form holidays, in which case I was hostelling with friends from St Martin's - still remember a gorgeous guy from Denver, but think we met in Cornwall (post CH).

I have a photograph of Bun and Mary collapsed onto their rucksacks - will try to remember to dig out and scan it.

xx
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MKM
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Post by MKM »

Angela Woodford wrote:Still niggling about the name of the Hertford small department store, and maybe... Graveson's??

Munch
Yes Graveson's. But perhaps we've left it too late for a final visit:

http://www.hertford.net/shopping/shopnews200201.htm

In one of our end-of-term sketches the Fairy Godmother (Susan Foulkes in a tutu) was announced as "on hire from Graveson's, only 5s an hour".
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Re: DR Circular -

Post by Richard Ruck »

MKM wrote:
Richard Ruck wrote:Did they look like this?
How would I know, we weren't allowed near them! :? :?

(sorry, I couldn't resist that) :oops:
Sorry! I thought you might have been gazing longingly at them from the confines of the school, dreaming of escape!
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Gravesons!

Post by Angela Woodford »

Thank you, thank you Mary. I was saying to Alex "Grayson's"? And she said "Nah!" But I was close, and then the name came to me.

It was a nice shop, for Hertford! And now it's closing...

RR is right in my case - I used to look at that Greenline going past and think - I could just hop on that - wonder how long it would be before anyone noticed I was missing - but not a proper running-away plan -

I really do plan to do a trip to Hertford sometime and see how it's changed.

Love, Munch
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Hostelling holidays

Post by MKM »

I went hostelling in Surrey several times, sometimes with my brother on bicycles, and sometimes walking with CH friends.

I remember excited planning at school, with wild talk of roaming the countryside, and sleeping in barns or haystacks. I'm glad we decided to stay in hostels after all.

We made lists of things we'd need, and divided them up between us. It was like a chapter from "Three Men in a Boat". We only had one pen between us, and would compete for it at night to write up our diaries.

We made a YHA-approved cotton inner sleeping bag (for Caroline?) on the house sewing machine. It was the end of term, and we took great joy in disregarding all we had been taught in our sewing lessons, and making wonky seams with unfinished raw edges.

I had a framed rucksack, with extra foam padding stitched to the straps. Susan had been promised the loan of a rucksack, but there was a misunderstanding and it turned out to be a duffle bag.

We stopped at a village green, and bought individual fruit pies from the shops,and plasters for our blistered feet. The shop keeper disapproved, and said that proper planning would prevent blisters.

Tanner's Hatch was a wonderful place, with a rich dark smell of wood smoke. One of the dormitories had three-tiered bunks. My brother used to stay there free, on the pretext that he was helping the warden.
http://www.yha.org.uk/find-accommodatio ... index.aspx

On another occasion (possibly after we had left school) a group of us stayed at the hostel in Stratford, to see plays at the theatre. We bought cheap tickets and stood at the back. Our feet ached. I loved the way the last bus did not leave at a fixed time, but waited until the theatre had closed. I think I still have a poster of Hamlet in the attic. It's not mine, I borrowed it from someone. Does anyone claim it?

Really, my memories of the hostelling trips are very hazy. I'm hoping others can add more.
Mary
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J.R.
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Post by J.R. »

Tanners Hatch is only a few miles from us.

It was under threat of closure recently, but I believe it is still operating.
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kayinbaja
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Stratford youth hostel trip

Post by kayinbaja »

I was there, in Stratford, as was Jean Flood. Don't remember who else, but do remember the aching feet especially during Lear. We saw a VERY young Alan Stanford in...can't remember what....Hamlet?
Also remember dropping my glasses in the river Avon, and getting smacked around by a swan when I tried to get them back.
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