Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Hello from a squit.
About me (the very short version):
Maine B 71-73
Thornton B 74-77
Hertford (regular visitor) 1978 - or was it 79?

Many happy memories of life at CH: Mad teachers, glorious summers, endless sports, the theatre, being bad, being stupid, crazy pranks, beatings, adventures, people who I have lost touch with but remember, mostly fondly.

Some (only a small sample) of those I remember best (in the order in which they come to mind as I write):
Ed Gauntlett, Mike Tuson, Max Mylvaganam, Mike Mitchell, James Hibbs, Russ Bravo, John Granger, Andy Quest, Tim Cuddeford, Mike Beer... actually, too many to name.

The question is, does anyone remember me? I had a great time and think (from what I have been told) that I had a bit of a reputation, but there was nothing spectacular about my school career, least of all my academic achievements.

Now and again I have bumped into a few OBs, but haven't really made any effort to relive my past, largely due to shame. I don't think I was a very nice person in those days, but again, it's hard to know how others see you.

On the Hertford side, I dated Julia Rees for nearly a year (1979) (where are you now, darling J?) and used to visit Hertford on Sundays, frequently hanging around inside the school. Wow, those were the days!

So, hello to you on the forum and let me know if the name rings a bell. I also answered to the nicknames (to my friends), of Frog, Fug, Brown-hatter and Chapeau Brun (no doubt there were many more).

If anyone's in the slightest bit interested, I have a very large supply of stories about my cohort, some about my own experiences, and some even publishable. I also have absolutely no pictures of myself, so if anyone has any from this period, I'd love to get my hands on them.

Fergus Brown. Oddball.

Hello Brown. You mention Andy Quest. Did he have a sister at Hertford? I remember the name Barbara Quest, but nothing else about her, except she was there in the late 1940s.

Midget, if Andy Quest was at Horsham in the late 70's their mother was going some. Barbara may have been an aunt, with a brother at Horsham in the 40's.

I remember one girl, the first of 7, announcing when she was in VI form that her mother was pregnant again.

midget wrote:Hello Brown. You mention Andy Quest. Did he have a sister at Hertford? I remember the name Barbara Quest, but nothing else about her, except she was there in the late 1940s.

hi Midget. No, Andy didn't have a sister, but it could conceivably have been an aunt. Andy's mate Time Cuddeford's sister Becky was head girl in 79. Though I vividly remember some of the experiences when I visited (any red-blooded man would), I (understandably) can't recall too many of the girls' names.

Your experiences must have happened after DR left (See earlier subjects under Hertford!!)

midget wrote:Your experiences must have happened after DR left (See earlier subjects under Hertford!!)

I'm new here. Please expand. If you're referring to the relative absence of males at Hertford, the only other ones there at that time as I recall were the gatekeeper/Schoolkeeper and a gardener. For a few glorious weekends I was extremely popular. I was also almost certainly there illegally, and some of the things I saw/did would certainly have resulted in expulsions if we were ever found out...

Who's DR?

assuming it was the same one... the caretaker/gardener fella in the 80s was called Liam!

DR was our head mistress, born in 1912, and not quite up to dealing with a motley collection of young girls.

midget wrote:DR was our head mistress, born in 1912, and not quite up to dealing with a motley collection of young girls.

By 79 DR would have been 67: still possible she was head, but unlikely.
At the end of term dance, I attended in drag (fooling no-one!) and danced with all the girls in the house. There were several teachers present and they said/did nothing that I recall. but then they wouldn't have known about the bottle of bacardi we part-emptied into the punch, or of the snogging round the corner...

Our Headmistress DR left, after thirty fierce unempathetic years of Righteousness, in 1972.

So, Brown, your visits must have been undetected by the rather nice-sounding Miss Tucker. A man in drag! A dance! Mistresses turning blind eyes! Bacardi!

I just can't can't can't imagine it. A bit like the decadence before the Fall of the Roman Empire, with you, Brown, as an invading barbarian!

Angela Woodford wrote:Our Headmistress DR left, after thirty fierce unempathetic years of Righteousness, in 1972.

So, Brown, your visits must have been undetected by the rather nice-sounding Miss Tucker. A man in drag! A dance! Mistresses turning blind eyes! Bacardi!

I just can't can't can't imagine it. A bit like the decadence before the Fall of the Roman Empire, with you, Brown, as an invading barbarian!

Ah, we were young...
The girls were all very well-behaved on the surface, but I recall sitting in the VI study in one of the houses with several girls in civvies cavorting bra-less in attempts to win some attention. I also visted the dormitory, the senior girl's rooms, the music practice rooms, and some rather nice parkland (foxes holes?), always accompanied, of course, by a responsible sixth former...

I can't have been the only 18-year-old visiting the school, surely...

BTW, at Ch I also had regular visitors to my study, as well as a few interesting assignations backstage in the theatre.

Honest, it was all innocent fun.

Brown wrote:Honest, it was all innocent fun.

Haha count yourself lucky! I got suspended (rusticated - that's a real Housey word!!) in early 1990 for having a girl in my Dormitory. I'm not sure the Head would have been quite so lenient if he'd known I had broken into Barnes A and woken said girl up before going back with her to Maine A...

Tommy wrote:

Brown wrote:Honest, it was all innocent fun.

Haha count yourself lucky! I got suspended (rusticated - that's a real Housey word!!) in early 1990 for having a girl in my Dormitory. I'm not sure the Head would have been quite so lenient if he'd known I had broken into Barnes A and woken said girl up before going back with her to Maine A...

Pedantry strikes

No it's not

see http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rusticate

Brown!

There are some wonderfully touching, funny and romantic postings elsewhere on the Forum by lonely wolf, who visited Hertford several times in the (?) mid-Seventies. Pictures too! One definitely of that hero in Little Dorm, 4's! Oh, the centre partings, the big lapels, the tank tops! Compulsive viewing.

lonely wolf has also visited Hertford long after the Closure, photographing the Houses, School Hall with its sad broken-down stopped clock, a "View from Inside Looking Out", etc. Wonderful pictures, that made me want it all back as it was for just a moment. (I'm just trying to remember the time in the School Day at which that clock had stopped for ever.)

When I last visited, I trod alone that familiar little path alongside DR's House that led to the Sixth Form Rooms, but also, horribly, to DR's Ante-Room (where that scowling gorgon Miss Gamble typed her immaculate letters) and to DR's Office itself. There I had stood at intervals over seven years, on a rug in front of her desk, for many, many dreadful morale-destroying interviews. I was pleased to note that this little pathway, once the Pathway of Fear, was now strewn with empty crushed cans of Special Brew and fag-ends. Strangely satisfying, that.

So, Brown; tell us more about these Seventies visits of yours! Please?