Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

midget wrote:

englishangel wrote:Only one animal sprung to MY mind. A bull terrier.

I think you have the truth of it, Mary.

Sorry, have to disagree. The staffies that have shared my life brought joy, empathy, laughter and loyalty and would never, ever have been seen in public wearing mismatched stockings

That was why I didn't say a staffie, all the ones I have known have tried to lick me to death, there are other varieties.

But it just shows you can't define humans in terms of animals.

Back to Mid.B............

I too spent my senior years (bar my last term) in Mid. B during the reign of Rev. Atkinson. He was always a good mate of Mid. A's Ron Lorimer, and I think he wished we were all as disciplined as our handbell-ringing bretheren next door. However, Mid.B. was always home to more free-spirited individuals, much to his chagrin.

I have only just read the first Post on this particular subject, and I think it is brilliant

I cannot remember any Housemasters being really hated, in the 40s

Were we less sensitive ? or was it just I ?

I have always claimed that L M Carey "Brought me up" from 12 to 18 , rather than my parents ----- which is an awful indictment !

Most of the housemasters I could have been assigned to when I arrived were simply horrific. I was lucky to land in John Page's house. He was an Old Marlburian, rather old-school and lacked imagination, but he was human and above all fair. My parents found him a bit posh, but otherwise they liked him too. Of the other housemasters around at that time, I could have got on with Cherniavsky (BaB) or Tod (MaA), probably Peto (MaB), but the thought of most of the others makes me shudder still (though nearly all have their admirers): Matthews, Arthur Rider (good man, but not as my housemaster, thank you), Kit Aitken, Chinky Buck, Johnstone, Littlefield... Archbold has his admirers, but he ran a totalitarian establishment. Things improved gradually though. By the time I left there was that very civilized man Pat Daunt (PeA), Tim Law (LaA), and Martin Barker had taken over MaA.

michael scuffil wrote:Most of the housemasters I could have been assigned to when I arrived were simply horrific. I was lucky to land in John Page's house. He was an Old Marlburian, rather old-school and lacked imagination, but he was human and above all fair. My parents found him a bit posh, but otherwise they liked him too. Of the other housemasters around at that time, I could have got on with Cherniavsky (BaB) or Tod (MaA), probably Peto (MaB), but the thought of most of the others makes me shudder still (though nearly all have their admirers): Matthews, Arthur Rider (good man, but not as my housemaster, thank you), Kit Aitken, Chinky Buck, Johnstone, Littlefield... Archbold has his admirers, but he ran a totalitarian establishment. Things improved gradually though. By the time I left there was that very civilized man Pat Daunt (PeA), Tim Law (LaA), and Martin Barker had taken over MaA.

No mention of my H/M, 'Bogey' Fryer, Michael ?

michael scuffil wrote:Most of the housemasters I could have been assigned to when I arrived were simply horrific. I was lucky to land in John Page's house. He was an Old Marlburian, rather old-school and lacked imagination, but he was human and above all fair. My parents found him a bit posh, but otherwise they liked him too. Of the other housemasters around at that time, I could have got on with Cherniavsky (BaB) or Tod (MaA), probably Peto (MaB), but the thought of most of the others makes me shudder still (though nearly all have their admirers): Matthews, Arthur Rider (good man, but not as my housemaster, thank you), Kit Aitken, Chinky Buck, Johnstone, Littlefield... Archbold has his admirers, but he ran a totalitarian establishment. Things improved gradually though. By the time I left there was that very civilized man Pat Daunt (PeA), Tim Law (LaA), and Martin Barker had taken over MaA.

Maybe most of us got on reasonably well with our housemasters, and found the thought of having one of the others frightening. I certainly found Kit helpful, although I would not like to have been taught by him.

michael scuffil wrote:Most of the housemasters I could have been assigned to when I arrived were simply horrific. I was lucky to land in John Page's house. He was an Old Marlburian, rather old-school and lacked imagination, but he was human and above all fair. My parents found him a bit posh, but otherwise they liked him too. Of the other housemasters around at that time, I could have got on with Cherniavsky (BaB) or Tod (MaA), probably Peto (MaB), but the thought of most of the others makes me shudder still (though nearly all have their admirers): Matthews, Arthur Rider (good man, but not as my housemaster, thank you), Kit Aitken, Chinky Buck, Johnstone, Littlefield... Archbold has his admirers, but he ran a totalitarian establishment. Things improved gradually though. By the time I left there was that very civilized man Pat Daunt (PeA), Tim Law (LaA), and Martin Barker had taken over MaA.

Cherniavsky was my Housemaster for the first year and had very little to do with the squits. Paddy Cullen was his #2. Although Cherniavssky never taught me, talking to the History Grecians, he was more comfortable with the older pupils.
For some reason I think Law was also in Barnes B when I was there, but most of the time it was Chris Miller, who complained on my report that I didn't like him, requiring extensive explanations to my father. Not a happy experience as my father was the bad cop at the Woolwich nick. The junior Housemaster was Brotherton, pretty lightweight, and they were followed by Goodall and Johnson, the latter impressing me even less than Miller.
In my time the monitors ran the house and only the House captain had regular contact with the Housemaster.
I did have a run in with Littlefield, who scared the pants off me, almost literally. He had a nasty reputation for beatings.

Now Newsome wasn't that bad and he did have a daughter!!!! What was her name??? Newsome was just very different to Seaman - and how did Seaman know me as a young squit in his first term when we passed in the quad??? Never have worked that one out.

Terrific story Simon, briliantly written.

I had no idea that the Rev Atkinson was such an ogre. He always struck me as rather ineffectual. Clearly I was totally mistaken. What a sad end to your days at CH...

And to put the record straight, David Newsome had four daughters, including Janet, who became engaged to Julian Berkeley (Th B 69-77).

Thanks Paul - thats the one my aged brain was struggling for!

[quote="Straz"]

I had no idea that the Rev Atkinson was such an ogre. He always struck me as rather ineffectual. Clearly I was totally mistaken. What a sad end to your days at CH...

Not an obvious target on the teen Dartboard of Angst, the Reverend did indeed have a spikiness, a symptom perhaps of shyness – or of an allergic reaction to the presence of house members? In a fruitless bid to airbrush a little colour into an otherwise morose landscape, I used to imagine him to have a glass eye. That sat unblinking in its socket and that was counterposed by its fellow which rolled around unchecked in sympathetic opposition. Which at least might have offered up some explanation as to why he conveyed the impression of not focussing on the lines he was paid, 'less we forget, to read between.
An oddball, I recall musing that the bonafide intimidation of a cigar-munching, Jag-driving Jesuit would've been somewhat easier to live with.
Unmarried also, his sense of vocation had been directed to – what exactly? Did he undergo transformations when safely hidden from public scrutiny? Did he, of a midnight hour and in the secrecy of his den, power up the gramophone, slap on a favourite Jimmy Shands shellac 78 and, as the invisible congregation clapped merrily and silently along, knee-jerk a stiff strathspey in his Sunday Best 'til dawn? Was this lone polka gingered up with a wee dram or three of the finest single-malt carefully rationed from a jealously-guarded private stash?
Sadly, I'll never know. What I do know is that we didn't get on, big-style.

The only mourning over my tempestuous CH exit was done, in private, by my Dad who was Hell-bent on Horsham heaven and had no real reason not to be enthralled by all things Housey. Every visit saw him engrossed by the buildings, the Band, the pomp of the site. I, on the other hand, couldn't escape the sensation of having been press-ganged into a Mason-hued motley crew with gurneying gargoyles at their helm. Ex-missionary, ex-military - enough to make a conscientious objector of the most robotically-inclined. In those snail-mail days, you had to live at CH to be privy to the home truths. Trying to explain to Dad was about as futile as attempting to explain the rules of cricket to an Italian. Diverging reality tunnels.
But my enduring memory of CH has nothing to do with anal retentives or being a chimp at the wrong tea party, dancing to a jungle beat.
I visited several times while my year were still there, hoping in vain to see the place that I envisaged it might be. 18 months after sailing off into the sunset, one balmy summer late evening, with Ed Clarke, now presumably Edward Clarke MD and one of those good-natured souls, lying on our backs on the First XI cricket outfield, united in our disconnection, gazing out into the firmament and imagining other, emerging worlds more in line with our own state of youthful melodrama and melancholy. Velvet visions in the void. Because there are as many sequels to a story as there are celestial bodies out there.

Ensconced here in the spring sunshine of the Bologna hills, all that's a million light years away.
I must confess one nagging regret though: how I wish I'd had the chance to wrench that Leaving Bible from Newsome's grimacing, unyielding grasp and sprint off with it through the Chapel doors in one last wild cathartic gesture, brandishing it to the skies.

I never officially left so I never did get my hands on the blasted thing. Come to think of it, maybe I should get in touch?

Simon,

Assuming that they did a bible for you it must still be there somewhere...unless they peeled your name sticker off it???
You have made me smile and transported me back to Horsham on a sunny day, thank you! Its interesting to hear others views of teachers that one remembers.

Parents always seemed much keener on the school than us - my mother still says that 'we' had a gentle arrogance about us when people visited the school - I wonder if Hertford was the same.