Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I don't know about the "Happiest days of my life" obviously marriage to TBA is great, but I WAS happy at CH, and I am still grateful.
Has it to do, perhaps, with the lack of "Serious"responsibility ?
We felt "Responsible" in our duties as Monitors or Team Captains, but had no idea of the worries and sleepless night s to come in our Adulthood, in being concerned about the welfare, and sometimes the lives, of others.

I am grateful a) for still being alive b) for a loving Wife c) for being solvent and (Mostly---d) My Offspring !!

I expect I am on the wrong Thread ---- but I don't know where to put this.

I have the "Talent" -- in company with all Blues of my time-- to pick up a bowl with one hand -- and drink from it.

This is from neccessity with "Kiff" bowls and had to be learned, very shortly after arrival at CH.

There appeared to be two methods a) With forefinger over the rim, and Thumb and Middle finger supporting the side of the bowl (My preferred method) or b) The bowl cupped at the side, with Thumb along the rim.

This hads come up recently, when TBA saw me doing it --- and asked WHY ?

I understand Kiff Bowls are long gone (I would have loved to buy one ) and we understood that "KIFF" came from the Greek "Kophos" --- a drink of uncertain extraction !!

When were they discontinued ?

If you 'search', top right, you will find them in lots of different places including ebay. I think they were still at Hertford until the merger (Vonny?, Maria?) so perhaps that is when they disappeared.

The French drink tea from bowls. I wonder if CH had a French connection or whether everyone in the old days used bowls. Although they had gone from CH when I joined the gand in '69 I sometimes use French bowls at home for drinking tea. Much bigger than a tea cup and far less ugly than drinking from a mug which in my opinion is very bad form.

huntertitus wrote:The French drink tea from bowls. I wonder if CH had a French connection or whether everyone in the old days used bowls. Although they had gone from CH when I joined the gand in '69 I sometimes use French bowls at home for drinking tea. Much bigger than a tea cup and far less ugly than drinking from a mug which in my opinion is very bad form.

Coffee, surely ????

Neill, to this day I still instinctively pick up any bowl using your method (a), as taught to me on arrival at Hertford in 1956. I also still fold my nighty and dressing gown in the prescribed manner, and carry a full jug as I was taught to do when we used to have to carry milk churns etc over from the school kitchens to wards - it was a safe way to carry liquids without slopping the contents. Some habits are just ingrained even after all these years.

Fjgrogan -----

Hospital corners, on the bed ? --- this amazed TBA, (Ex Nurse) when I did it !
Of course it is now a Duvet.

Full jugs, I believe, have to do with Resonance --- but perhaps a greater Physicist, than I, will elaborate !!

We are going off topic here, but following on the jugs, last night husband son and I were eating fish and chips (from plates, with knives and forks at the table, irrelevant but true) and we each had a pint of tea. Son and husband had straight sided mugs with the tea about an inch from the top, my cup (Dunoon) has a flared top and the tea was about 1/4 inch from the top. Husband sat down at the table, bumping it so it shook like the ground in Haiti and while my cup didn't slop over both the other two did. Explanation please.

huntertitus wrote:The French drink tea from bowls. I wonder if CH had a French connection or whether everyone in the old days used bowls. Although they had gone from CH when I joined the gand in '69 I sometimes use French bowls at home for drinking tea. Much bigger than a tea cup and far less ugly than drinking from a mug which in my opinion is very bad form.

Just come across

kiff A word that is derived from the Afrikaans word for poison,`gif'.

and

kiff Australian slang for something sh1t.

Could have a relationship to so called beverages served up at Horsham?

With respect to the bowls, in the middle ages they drank from wooden bowls, which were easy to make. Turned out on a lather. I would hazard a guess that for a long time beer was the main drink, rather than tea or coffee, and certainly better than water, and this could have been served in bowls. Compared to cups and mugs, with handles, bowls are easier to stack and carry, less likely to have minor damage, (broken handles) and can be used for serving gruel etc.

Just a thought.

I thought kiff was '50s or '60s slang for heroin

Not that CH tea had drugs in it

One had to visit certain studies in Lamb B for that

allegedly...

huntertitus wrote:I thought kiff was '50s or '60s slang for heroin

Not that CH tea had drugs in it

One had to visit certain studies in Lamb B for that

allegedly...

and a male immigrant member of the kitchen staff, I think

jhopgood wrote:
Just come across

kiff A word that is derived from the Afrikaans word for poison,`gif'.

and

kiff Australian slang for something sh1t.

Could have a relationship to so called beverages served up at Horsham?

With respect to the bowls, in the middle ages they drank from wooden bowls, which were easy to make. Turned out on a lather. I would hazard a guess that for a long time beer was the main drink, rather than tea or coffee, and certainly better than water, and this could have been served in bowls. Compared to cups and mugs, with handles, bowls are easier to stack and carry, less likely to have minor damage, (broken handles) and can be used for serving gruel etc.

Just a thought.

I had no idea you were THAT old, John !!

I don't know, but I doubt the Afrikaans "Kiff" derivation.

GIF --- Poison (German GIFT) would be, in Afrikaans, pronounced ------with G as a gutteral sound -- impossible to reproduce in print but HGif is close.

I understand that the term was in use in the London Days --- hence pre 1902, and very few people understood Afrikaans, ---- unless you were on the "Other Side "

Still, we may hear more ---- ?

I thought Kiff came from the German, like Spadge. Don't know how I picked this up.

Handles for cups only came in in the eighteenth century I think so I wonder if the kiff bowls pattern might be very old indeed. Like the settles.

When were the settles made? They were covered in very thick paint and were indestructable. I remember we had very ancient desks made of cast iron and hard polished wood with a hole for an ink well (quills?) and many carried carved graffiti from the Victorian times. It would be interesting to know exactly how old the things we took for granted at the time were. I am sure all that stuff has gone by now.