Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Thank you for that information, I had a lot of respect for Ian Atkinson. He seemed like a vicar who actually believed, even in the late 1970s a bit of a surprise. He taught me Latin which I struggled with in the Third Form (iirc) and he was delighted when I told him I'd got an 'A' at O-level. I reme...

Amazing.! A man of many parts and from another era. Do you remember the huge picture of a cow defecating on the wall of his lab? It was there for years. The picture I mean - not the cow. When he was long retired, c. 1980 and had his lab at the back of the New Science School with his bees, allotment...

VAT is a tax of monstrous complexity and I could well imagine that the support given by the Foundation to those not paying 'full fees' might be regarded as a subsidy to a 'supply' and so it might be made liable to VAT, just saying. The purpose of this VAT is not to raise revenue but to undermine the...

Is your only purpose in life to come on here and patronise your fellow OBs? Asking for a friend.

What a splendid outing. I went to Guernsey a few years back and found it absolutely delightful, St. Peter Port is a very pleasant town and you can see all the other Channel Islands from there (IIRC Jersey was on the very limits of visibility), and looking over at Sark and Jethou they look very close...

To hidden, It is perfectly clear that CH was appallingly badly run in the 1970s and right up to the 1990s, and you have every right to feel let down by what happened there. For some of us, like me, CH was actually a haven from an appalling home life in a single-parent household. For others, it was a...

'To be a Pilgrim', Bunyan's poem turned hymn is best known set to the tune of Monk's Gate, named https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yHJMPw8RHU, for the hamlet just south-east of Horsham, near Manning's Heath, around 3 miles from CH. A fine tune it is.

It's the second time the ship has done this in a few years. I only wish they could have been made to explain themselves to Chief.

No, it was purely a case of mistaken identity. During my first year at CH I went back to my old primary school in southeast London in my Housey uniform to meet my past school mistress again and show the class the unique uniform. Afterwards as I was walking back home along the streets a youth shoute...

Bernard Levin was a national figure in his prime, anyone under 50 has probably not heard of him. He moved a long way away from his early Bolshevik views as he matured, which was a good thing, and one to be emulated by some of this parish, one might hope. He was certainly the stand-out Old Blue of hi...

I am as certain as I can be that our chartered train went over the Thames to Cannon Street, thereby disgorging a disorder of pupils directly into the City without posing any undue risk to the Thames bridges, presumably much to the relief of the trustees of the charity that provides the bridges. Thre...

A wonderful life, condolences to his family. This shows CH at its best, setting bright people up to pursue their talents to the full. Without metallurgy, and metallurgists we really have nothing but wood and stone, our world would be a primitive wasteland.

I have no knowledge in this area, but I imagine that it meant that there was some form of structural damage from the blast. If it buried itself before exploding, it would (ironically enough) act like a weak 'earthquake bomb' as per Barnes Wallis's Tallboys and Grand Slams, the blast being conducted ...

I should add that when I went to the Mansion House for St. Matthew's Day, I do recall a rather good buffet having been proffered, a welcome upgrade on the usual CH fare.

The Corporation of London was so hard up that it couldn’t run to a normal can

The Lord Mayor and his Corporation; famously as poor as Dick Whittington's cat.