Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Any idea why? He's in possession of functioning self-preservation instincts? If I were still a gambling man, I'd put money on this silence from the former SMT as the calm before the storm when they start shouting all at once until one of them gets thrown under the bus for the whole affair. Still ha...

True, but raw numbers are irrelevant unless they hold positions of influence.
A couple of billion people would prefer not to live in a nuclear wasteland but it only takes one unhinged orange muppet to put their finger on the right button to make it happen anyway.

Actually, this begs an interesting question. How did the School socially engineer the houses? I'm not sure they did, at least not in any calculated way. Like most organisations, the culture tends to be defined by those at the top and I think/thought that the house more reflected the character of th...

I've also got good memories of Jim Endacott, not as a teacher but as a housemaster. Fair, but hard when occasion arose. I always remember him for putty, not punishing me for being blind drunk while on a Saturday duty (taking roll call and sending young un's to bed on time), and his inability to smel...

I've been thinking about this for a while and have come to the conclusion that I didn't underachieve at CH. Not because I was a genius athlete who went to Oxbridge, but because the expectations for me were so low. For my parents, the only two things they told me were 1) do what makes you happy, and ...

Bit of a strange experience watching those videos. Jogged a few memories and cleared a few more up, plus found myself a bunch of times thinking "wait, I know that kid!". That's the most I've seen of CH since I left. Can't say it gave me any desire to see more, or stirred any long lost feel...

If I'd stayed in the UK after school and joined the cops I'd probably have signed up with the shifty handshake crew in a heartbeat, but other than that I never really saw the point. If all you're looking for is a drinking club it's far easier to join a rugby/football/hockey/rowing club. Most people ...

... the Masonic link should be explored. I've always felt that CH should drop any reference to 'brotherhood' - it implies stronger Masonic links than do or should exist . Not sure if that's ever likely to happen though, the links are very real and quite strong. The CH lodge was formed in 1897, spon...

Lots of people spend a lifetime in a 'temporary' place though. Once you've settled somewhere inertia can rob you of a decade before you notice it.
Maybe for some of them CH was a temporary gig that turned into the devil they knew?

I'd imagine some saw it as a stepping stone to a better job. I don't know what the reputation of CH was from a teacher's perspective, but at the very least it was a selective boarding school which provided a classical education. There must have been some sort of cachet having that on your CV when lo...

The school made me see life through the lens of Goldings Lord of the Flies ... I've mentioned/referred to LotF many times when answering the standard "what was boarding school like?" question over the years. I cut back on using it as an example when an ex was quite shaken by my using it t...

"Hemel" Hempstead? I think it may have been. That definitely rings bells. Yes, he was Housemaster of Th B Yep, David Hempstead, he taught French(?). Was a nice guy IIRC, one of the few teachers that I was disappointed that they left at the time. I was in ThB as well, then transferred to P...

Yes, I imagine it would. Corporal punishment had been banned by the time I got to CH, so I just had to learn to avoid the unsanctioned gym shoe beatings from a couple of the older boys.
Fairly sure a few of the teachers missed it.

I know it's too much to expect 12 year old me to have seen things then as 40 year old me does now, but at the very least you'd have hoped your subconscious would throw out a 'Danger Will Robinson!' around certain people, even if you're not fully able to understand why at the time.

The more I read from people who were there at the same time as me, the more surprised I am at just how naive I was not to have put it together. I was briefly in the scouts and went on a Broads trip, and was also taught by him, both (IIRC) during 2nd/3rd form, and even with that minimal level of inte...