Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Vonny wrote:

adlop wrote:Also known for a short time as tea -bags.

I won't ask why

Actually it's a lot more innocent than it sounds. They were of a fetching design that resembled tea bags in that they had the lots of little holes woven into them (if you can weave holes that is but I hope you get my meaning), I suspect it was some form of victorian health type design to let fresh air in round your nethers...

adlop wrote:

Vonny wrote:

adlop wrote:Also known for a short time as tea -bags.

I won't ask why

Actually it's a lot more innocent than it sounds. They were of a fetching design that resembled tea bags in that they had the lots of little holes woven into them (if you can weave holes that is but I hope you get my meaning), I suspect it was some form of victorian health type design to let fresh air in round your nethers...

After a week before change, they certainly did look like tea bags!!!

I am really struggling to get my head round the thought that young men at Horsham wore 'tea bags' as underwear. I thought our 'blues' and 'linings' at Hertford were bad enough.....
What did the girls at Horsham wear, after the merger.........?

kerrensimmonds wrote: What did the girls at Horsham wear, after the merger.........?

Underwear-wise we all had our own from home. Or at least the seniors did. I was on the GE when I moved to Horsham so don't know what the juniors did. The girls houses had washing machines by the changing rooms (downstairs) so we used to do our own underwear washing. Invariably there would be damp washing lurking in the machines for a few days!

Washing machines??!!!
Own washing??!!

I need to go and lie down in a darkened room! In my day, 'own washing' comprised hand washing, in the bathroom basins, and drying the forbidden articles on radiators beyond the jurisdiction (so we hoped) of the House Mistress.

This reminds me of the "grey shirts" discussion at Horsham in the early 60s. Our "cricket clothes" set included white shirts, which were worn for cricket and generally "off-duty" in the summer (changed weekly), and grey shirts, which according to the rule-book were "for wear for tea but not before". When we asked why not before, we were reminded of the dreadful truth that we had just ONE grey shirt for the whole summer term, and there was no provision in the laundry rota for washing it. At one House Captains' meeting, we asked whether it might not be an idea to introduce "drip-dry" grey shirts that boys could wash themselves (ha, ha) but Seaman was obviously not au fait with modern textile technology.

michael scuffil wrote:This reminds me of the "grey shirts" discussion at Horsham in the early 60s. Our "cricket clothes" set included white shirts, which were worn for cricket and generally "off-duty" in the summer (changed weekly), and grey shirts, which according to the rule-book were "for wear for tea but not before". When we asked why not before, we were reminded of the dreadful truth that we had just ONE grey shirt for the whole summer term, and there was no provision in the laundry rota for washing it. At one House Captains' meeting, we asked whether it might not be an idea to introduce "drip-dry" grey shirts that boys could wash themselves (ha, ha) but Seaman was obviously not au fait with modern textile technology.

As one would expect from a pipe smoking classics teacher !

kerrensimmonds wrote:Washing machines??!!!
Own washing??!!

I don't remember if it was only seniors who could use the machine or if juniors did as well I seem to think it was just the seniors.

kerrensimmonds wrote:I need to go and lie down in a darkened room! In my day, 'own washing' comprised hand washing, in the bathroom basins, and drying the forbidden articles on radiators beyond the jurisdiction (so we hoped) of the House Mistress.

Yes - that happened in my time at Hertford so washing machines were a complete luxury at Horsham!

We had to wash our own socks/stockings and dry them in the airing room AFAIR

englishangel wrote:We had to wash our own socks/stockings and dry them in the airing room AFAIR

Yes, I remember the discomfort of putting them on, still damp, on a winter morning.

AH you young ones who came after the era of the LISLE stockings! These were definitely sent to the laundry twice a week. You had to tie your pair together with the tapes sewn on at the tops, by the number tape. When they returned, some poor wardrobe girl had to check them all and then she would come down to the cloakroom with this peculiar scarf of stockings around her neck. She would then proceed to distribute all the stockings needing darning onto appropriate pegs. You became quite a dab hand with a darning mushroom, needle and thread!

I can't remember when the lisle ones went and the ribbed beige ones came in.

I have had great fun reading old postings whenever I have a cancellation, here at work. I am reviving an old thread because it was very amusing to catch up with horrors that I had forgotten!! The Blues and liners!! The 'T" that was so obvious above someone's skirt, when they raised their arms, once a month! The hideous fawn colored stockings that showed a yard of milky white, chubby thigh and suspender, if any one bent over too quickly! AArgh! The horrors!
Three things spring to mind - 1) If you had the really old style of blues, with the footlong gusset, and the elastic in one leg became weakened - there was always the danger of the rapid descent of a yard-and-a-half of navy cloth hanging below one's tunic and hitting at about knee height.
2) When we graduated to stockings/tights from home - I ALWAYS had holes in them. (Still struggle with this today!!) Even putting them on, I would snag something and have a million ladders - and wearing them just worsened this. I was the BANE of Betty Jukes' existence for this. (The alternative was the fawn ankle socks and Clark's sandals - but somehow this was a backwards step in advancement of maturity and privilege, and to be avoided at all costs). To be without some form of leg covering was tantamount to being naked in public. One year, I had stayed in Greece for a couple of weeks and returned bronzed and relaxed. I decided that I could probably get away with no tights, if no one looked closely, as my legs were brown. To my great horror, I heard my name being lisped sharply and turned to find BJ's eyes boring holes into my naked legs. I felt pale and faint, waiting to be struck down for eternity, with this fearful transgression! I was met with a "Well, finally! You have actually managed to look pwesentable for once - with no unseemly holes!" as she turned crisply on her heel and left! Hooray for myopia!
3) While dressing for one Sat outing with parents - I realized that my home underwear (nylon in those days) has not dried completely in its competion for drying space and I would have to wear it damp. Being a creature of comfort - this did not appeal. I had the bright idea of ironing it to dry it. No sooner had I applied the hot iron to the fabric than there was a sizzling and fearful smell of burnt plastic. The fabric shrivelled and disappeared before my eyes - leaving a large hole at the front of my nylon panties. I was faced with the choice of wearing school issue jumbos- or the previously pretty, but now holey, home underwear. I opted for the latter - reckoning it would be my little secret. Later that day - while on a bike ride with my sister, I realized that my bell bottom trousers (it was the 70s) kept catching in the chain. Being a bright spark - instead of stopping and rolling up my trews - I continued cycling and cocked my leg onto the handlebars and started rolling up said trouser leg while still riding. Needless to say, I went A over T over the handlebars and ended up with a nasty cut. I'm sure you can imagine the rest of the story, with mandatory visit to Emergency room (A&E?)/ obligatory tetanus shot - those days given in backside - and the embarrassment of revealing the peephole undies and attempting to make explanation. "Well, I was just ironing them, when.........."

and I bet your mother always told you to wear clean knickers in case you had an accident.

Apologies if I have said this before, when we got our BAs we had better stockings for Sundays. When I was first there they were silk, very luxurious! Later, and we may have been amongst the first to get them, we had 60 denier nylon monstrosities. We were expected to wash these ourselves, I think this was the first sanctioned washing by pupils. I got my BA at Christmas in UV and left school three years later - in those three years I had worn those stockings every Sunday and other high days and holidays and not a single ladder or hole in that time - perhaps they weren't made of nylon at all!