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Share your memories and stories from the Hertford Christ's Hospital School, which closed in 1985, when the two schools integrated to the Horsham site....
Kim2s70-77 wrote:I really think that, in the entire history of CH, we were blessed with the least imaginative, ugliest and least flattering of all uniform updates! At least the current pupils can blame 'costume' if they get a second glance - ours was just blandly ugly!!
I don't think we would have minded a "costume" half as much as we did the uniforms we had that were so dreary. Even the striped summer dresses were unflattering - the pink ones reminded me of sticks of rock.
I think the only decent article of clothing we had was the blazer.
I remember our ugliest garment being the hideous grey dresses, with spotted or striped blue and white short sleeved blouses. Oh! Oh!
Rumour had it that the grey dress had been designed by SWSNBN herself, to be suitable for all sizes and all ages. I loathed the greys.
Gradually, the more daring element in 6's managed to sport shorter and shorter greys. Then, after lunch one Sunday, DR appeared in Dining Hall for a surprise swoop reorganisation. Pot's face was like thunder as she anticipated remembering whose grey had been swapped with whom and the prospect of faffing-around with the splodgy pen and marking ink. Pot's skills in garment marking were extremely messy. Her hand shook horribly without a fired-up Craven A in situ. "Miss West - interfering with m'chuldren!" I could see her furiously mouthing the wurrrrds to hersailf.
(I'm getting a memory of residual granulated sugar getting caught up in the swapped greys on the table and the lingering taste of the speckling of burned pastry. We'd had some sort of disgusting pie for pudding.)
Siobhan Kierans had managed to acquire a grey which was mini; really mini. DR's stern glance fell upon it, and the order came - "Take it off!". I felt sick with fear. I was in big trouble. I was wearing a pair of M&S stretchy pants in an orange and pink floral design. My grey was on the short side, and tight too - possibly under additional strain from two helpings of burned pie. At any moment, I was going to have to reveal the orange and pink pants, and be condemned to hellfire forever.
I assumed the glazed panic face of one who is experiencing some sort of Emergency - possibly of an intestinal or gynaecological nature. I seized the edge of the sugary table and turned up to the decisive, relentless DR an expression of terrified despair. "Please may I be excused, Miss West?" I moaned. There was a hideous pause whilst the set jaw of our Headmistress quilted with the decision.... hmm....hmm...
"Very well, Angela".
It was as if I had been reprieved at the last moment from a pyre of certain death. I fled from Dining Hall - a shame Nellie couldn't have appreciated a speed I had never achieved in Games. Safe! Safe!
The subsequent indignant chunterings of poor Pot! I turned on the sympathy with the warmth of one who had escaped a terrible fate.
"Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing "Cunning plans are here again.""
I don't know who designed the greys, DR may have had a part. I had a surreal experience when they were very new.
As Hilary Evans and I kept on winning the prize with our garden (the one with the silver birch by the swings), we were the lucky ones to be taken to Chelsea Flower Show when an OB had given tickets. For some reason, instead of going with Hilary I went with Niclette Mills, Head Girl, Hilary and AN Other went the following day. We actually had a lovely day, in spite of wearing our greys. As we had tea in the marquee, DR looked at us with pride and said that in those dresses we might be taken for her daughters and not schoolgirls on a day out!
I don't think either of us would have ever chosen such a garment!
Coatfrocks must have been phased out in '63/64 because I know that I wore one in 5s ( remember the dress-shields inside them, that we had to unpick, wash and re-sew into them ?) - and I agree, they were much smarter than those horrible grey dresses, which gave even the thinnest girls battle-ship hips.
My bro' was as Horsham at the same time and I envied him his uniform, even if it did weigh a ton - think today's girls look very good indeed
Hertford - 5s/2s - 63-70
" I wish I were what I was when I wanted to be what I am now..."
Still??? the mind boggles... I remember my mother's face when she wanted to buy a pubescent daughter a sorely -needed deodorant and was told that I was not allowed to use it ( someone, probably SWMNBN, decided this might damage the clothes..) - and those dress shields still ponged even after washing...
Hertford - 5s/2s - 63-70
" I wish I were what I was when I wanted to be what I am now..."
If you think about it they are quite useful for silk dresses and other delicate evening wear. Wash the dress shield rather than have the dress dry-cleaned every time.
"If a man speaks, and there isn't a woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"
[quote="Euterpe13"]Coatfrocks must have been phased out in '63/64 because I know that I wore one in 5s
Yes - as noted above, we arrived in August 64 and never wore them: only the dreaded greys. At that stage we had gymslips for every day, but when we got the blue tunics for Sundays the greys were demoted. They looked really bad with anaemic flannel shirts and house ties - but probably nothing could have looked good with an orange and navy striped 3s tie!
The greays went on - and on - and on - we had them till the Vth form then went into VIth form uniform - the dreaded plastic sacks! It was like living in a tube, they were horrible.
That must have changed, as I remember VI form uniform being navy skirts, pale blue blouses and a non-house specific tie (navy with a thin gold stripe). Out of all the awful things we had to wear, I think they looked most like a uniform.
I think Lynn's "plastic sacks" must have been the Sunday tunic (with the striped or polka dotted shirt - and wasn't it tartan in the Winter?) - as we too had the navy skirt/ blue flannelish shirt and navy and gold tie. VERY ugly!! I've never been a snappy dresser (still look like I'm at CH half the time!) but even I used to question the number of odd mismatched patterns and styles. I don't think I had realized that it was a sort of evolution - I thought someone had sat down and tastelessly designed it that way!!
I remember the tartan blouses but I still can't sort out the plastic sacks. They were blue tunics and we wore a blouse underneath - they were 100% synthetic.
It's not really that surprising - I've never been very interested in clothes and really, our uniforms were not something that any of us would have WANTED to be interested in, let alone commit details of it to memory!
It was really nice when we sang madrigals and wore the old uniforms.