Amelia White (in the Daily Mail) deplores her CH years

[MrEd]

A very sad story, I remember some boys in the late 70s who simply could not cope with boarding and it must have been horrible. However, the feelings of rejection by parents it is not really something to lay at the door of CH even if it was the 'enabler', it is a choice ultimately made by parents. Some desperate to give a child a good education, some probably desperate for a bit of autonomy and indifferent to the consequences for the child, some having no real practical alternative (like the many Forces brats whose fathers were in the BAOR or RAF Germany or off beyond the seas), when this was part of the price of service.

For me, CH was a perfectly acceptable alternative (apart from the food and the hyper-allergenic environment) to a grim home life in a single-parent household, and I was more than happy away from it and at CH. In this case at least mother and daughter can talk about it and to each other. It is hard to judge a parent without having been in their shoes.

It should be noted that school bullying can have terrible life-long impacts, particularly with girls who might be prone to eating disorders. That however, can equally be the case in any school, co-ed or not, boarding or day. What is clear is that all the guff that the management came out with at the time of the merger with Hertford was nothing more than window-dressing, I left in 1985 and many teachers were talking about the new strict rules that were coming in (a few years after the Webb scandal), so they knew that they had responsibilities and they did not step up to them.

[Pe.A]

I think we know that boarding school life is not for everyone. Unlike many Old Blues, I was brought up with parents who hoped I’d go to CH, my brother started at Horsham when I was just 5. We brought our sons up telling them that they would go to boarding school at the age of 8 or 9. I think that start makes a huge difference to the experience of it.

I was surprised by her calling it Christ’s, is that common usage? I would have expected CH or the full name. Of course the change may have been made by the paper.

A very interesting point.

[Pe.A]

In my day, the 1950s, we were certainly kept busy, with compulsory games as well. So we were knackered physically and mentally. This led to a lively discussion between the late Dr Scuffil and myself as to whether this was deliberate to keep our minds off sex, which then would have been of the homosexual variety and therefore illegal in adulthood.

What, so you think that rugby and cricket practice steered you away from wanting to give another boy a hand shandy in the showers...?

[Otter]

I was surprised by her calling it Christ’s, is that common usage? I would have expected CH or the full name. Of course the change may have been made by the paper.

I have heard this on several occasions, but not by current or former pupils or staff themselves. I've heard it said by people who are somewhat familiar with CH but have no direct connection to it. Local residents, teachers at other schools, etc.

[scrub]

I was surprised by her calling it Christ’s, is that common usage? I would have expected CH or the full name. Of course the change may have been made by the paper.

I have heard this on several occasions, but not by current or former pupils or staff themselves. I've heard it said by people who are somewhat familiar with CH but have no direct connection to it. Local residents, teachers at other schools, etc.

I've also heard it a few times, although as above, rarely from people who went there. It's just the standard truncation people use - most Oxbridge colleges are referred to by the first part of their name (King's, Keeble, Trinity, etc), same for most independent schools (Cranleigh, Eton, King's, etc) - so maybe the editor put it in for clarity?

[sejintenej]

I may have attended CH more than 10 years before Amelia, but I certainly recall experiencing homesickness, anxiety and rejection in my first couple of years at the school.
To survive these feelings, you have to dig deep and learn how to stand on your own two feet, while helping others who are struggling. It's something that I've found has helped me in life, and continues to do so.

I answered the original message with a certain amount of vitriol but didn't post it.

This woman simply seems not to know what it is to be short of food (just the school lunch which often made even the teacher too ill for a few days so the school with its luxuries had to close until she recovered) , no heating in winter, not even first, second or sometimes third hand clothing, shoeless, devoid of electricity with one parent (almost certainly dyslexic) working 6am to 10pm 6 1/2 days a week, (often more), a slate to write on because there is no paper or pencil, and forced to leave (to CH) because the mother's employer does not want a kid around. I am writing about 1953, not 1553.

She should be thankful that she enjoyed the relative luxuries of CH rather than decry them.

[Kiff]

Another article by Amelia.
If you persist, you will get to the end of the article, but you need to open it several times.
Don't think she mentions CH by name.
https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/boa ... ol-2952925

[Hidden]

I’ve just joined (anonymously) because I’m trying to make sense of my time at CH.

I was interested to read Amelia’s articles because her emotional experiences were very similar to my own.

Additionally, I was bullied for the for the entire time I was there, all the way up to Grecians.

I was made to believe that it was somehow my fault that I was bullied. One of them told me “it’s for your own good, it’ll make you stronger.” It didn’t. It broke me.

I have depression and anxiety, and have also been diagnosed with PTSD as I have flashbacks and night terrors.

Don’t get me wrong, CH did provide a good education; despite clearly suffering the beginnings of the mental health issues that I live with today back then, I managed to get decent enough A Levels to attend university, but my time at CH broke me mentally and emotionally, and I am still picking up the pieces years later.

Now that the total lack of safeguarding during my time there has come to light (I was there at the same time as the staff whose behaviour was the very worst of the school’s failings at the time, though the lack of genuine pastoral care trickled down to every level), I am feeling horribly let down, for myself, and for those who had it much worse and who were courageous enough to speak up.

[Foureyes]

There are some comments above on the poor quality of food at Horsham in the 1970s. All I can say is that the writers never had to endure my late mother's cooking - Housie was a relative feast in comparison.
David

[MrEd]

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 an opportunity to get a good education. I am not sure if I learned that much at CH, apart from Latin, Physics and some Maths, I seem to have learned more by my own efforts than much that I was taught, but CH did encourage a culture of learning and respect for learning which was a marked contrast to some schools I have come across. What I would say also is that many who went to the more austere school of the 1950s era simply accepted the harsh conditions, but they might have had a better time of it if proper discipline was maintained.

The CH income test probably selected indirectly for children from the crop of single-parent households that sprang up in the 1970s on the back of the divorce reforms that came into effect in 1971 in England and Wales and probably led to a lot of pupils coming from broken homes. I suppose that what CH did not do was inculcate any serious discipline against bullying, but there again, I know of some cases from the last few years of appalling cultures at fee-paying private schools where it seems the staff strive to sweep the muck under the carpet and disguise the nature of their appalling pupils and their parents.