Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I never thought John Peel's accent sounded very Liverpool, certainly not full-on Scouse, but then Tom Keeley never really had that full-on Brummie thing either. I think it was more their similarities of intonation.

I remember rescuing a huge pile of Eleanor Keeley's (Tom's daughter) 70s Jackie magazines from the paladin and decorating my study with the posters.

John Knight wrote:

J.R. wrote:>> and the Coleridge B dining-table was right next to the dais !

Oh! And I always thought the table layout matched the houses...
Peele A at the dais end down to Prep B at the Counting House end.
When will I ever stop learning.
John.

Masters dais.

Coleridge B
next, Coleridge A
Then the Middleton's down to Peele.

Not sure about how the other end of the aveneue were laid out, but the 2 Preps were last. nearest the Counting House.

J.R. wrote:Masters dais.
Coleridge B
next, Coleridge A
Then the Middleton's down to Peele.

Not sure about how the other end of the aveneue were laid out, but the 2 Preps were last. nearest the Counting House.

From the Preps it went in house order... I had not realized that it changed sequence after the Quad
John. (still learning )

Our tables were simple - they replicated the order of houses in the square. 8s & 1s nearest the square and 4s & 5s the other side of the room.

I can't remember the order of marching when we marched twice a day, particularly where 4s fitted into the order. I KNOW we marched in last and our seniors closed the doors as they came in.

There was a hall trade in Thornton B called "Door". It went to two quite senior people and involved closing the door between the Hall and the kitchens during grace, and making sure no one barged in from the kitchen. Thornton A (I think, or it may have been Mid A) had a similar trade. They had to close the front door of the Hall -- or in summer arrange the sparrow nets across the doorway.

At Horsham we marched in from both ends of the Avenue in house order into two separate doors; the first house to each door would then turn left and fill up the table closest to the dais (western end - Col B)) or pulpit (eastern end - Lamb A) The next house would take the next table and so on so that Peele A would end up in the centre of the hall next to Lamb A and Prep B would be at the end away from the dais.

At lunch a housemaster would preside at the top of his house's table (back to the quad) , a pupil being required to go and get his meal from the dais.

Paul N wrote:OK, here are a few of my favourite teachers - I was in Maine B and then Lamb B - 76 - 83 if I remember rightly:

Mongy Torkington - how could chemistry lessons be anything but exciting with him doing things like accidentally igniting an oil covered lump of phosphorous with a pair of tongs we had only just finished heating up to red hot whilst he was up stairs getting Richard Fry to open the phosphorous bottle for him.

God, I remember him demonstrating the combustibility of hydrogen by setting light to gas emanating directly from a hydrogen cylinder. The apparatus promptly flew across the classroom, signaling yet another fire alarm. Am I right in thinking he held the world record for setting light to his classroom?

He also had me mix soluble starch and iodine over a bunsen burner -- the mixture promptly exploded over my face.

And for what it is worth, Peter Wright was the greatest teacher I ever had, hands down.

Mongy demonstrating about the composition of bones by showing us 2 that had been prepared, one by removing the calcium (went all floppy) the other by removing protien/collage ? which had become brittle. He just put 1 hand in each of the beakers of solution containg the bones, pulled them out to display - then said "I don't think i should have done that" and ran to a tap

Also remember his Saab getting squashed in the big storm

Mongy also was an ASL in the scouts for years and always got lost...

he was often seen driving his ancient Volvo (he must have liked Scandanavian cars) the wrong way into a camp site...

Another great story is in about 87 a new Maths teacher called Mr Stindt joined, he was assistant housemaster/tutor in LHA and taught us Double Maths people stats. Anyway story was that he was a refugee from the South African Nuclear Program (don't know the truth in this) anyway he had done his national service and so 1 day when a certain vegetarian classmate of mine pulled a rather realistic spudgun on him he dived behind his raised desk in the Maths Block. He then realised it was a replica (probably before he even hit the floor) stormed across the room bodily lifted the offended up out of the desk by the front of his coat and bodily threw him at the swinging door. I don't think his feet touched the floor until after he hit the wall on the other side of the corridor.

Fair play on him though, he didn't report him to any other teachers just confiscated the weapon

Extraordinary. I've ploughed all the way through eight pages of tghis stuff and nowhere is there a single mention of Michael Carrington, who must, SURELY be one the absolute all time great teachers by anyones' standards! Not in the classroom, necessary, but as housemaster of Thorn A he set us a moral example which I have treasured ever since. Mike took so many reject pupils under his very considerable wing - he was famous for this: Thorn A was a kind of last chance saloon for the very wayward) and really INVESTED in us. Actually, he loved us. With a passion. All of us. Even those he probably didn't. It was his methodology, I think. I know for a fact that he ferociously fought our pitch with disapproving colleagues; he also, frankly, took outrageous risks in the trust he had in us, a trust we didn't always deserve. He had no time for snobbery, social or - more importantly in the CH context - academic. He was - still is, I'm sure - the least judgemental man on earth, and one of the kindest: our girlfriends were put up in his family's spare bedroom on their frequent visits; pupils' cars were parked outside their house for use on leave days; Sunday lie-ins for the whole house were organised about 3 times a term, surely in the teeth of stiff opposition? Mike personally financed the production of my first attempt at playwrighting - a bunch of mates put together an agit-prop romp about a workers' revolution in a police state. Top management allegedly hated it - the odious David Newsome - which was just fine by me.
Sorry, this is turning into a tome! Actually, I could - perhaps should - write a book about this great, great man. Growing up in an all female family, one of the reason I was sent to CH was to get some male role models. I had some great ones - Chris Nicholson (who told me it was okay to want to be a writer), the late John Penny (who let me take Art A level when I'd failed the O level! When would THAT happen these days?), Duncan Noel-Paton (who let so many of us off the creative leash when he crashed into the school with his amazing drama department), Nick Plumley, who introduced me to classical music, investicative history and smoked salmon) the Rev. John Hall-Matthews (Christianity in action, not words)... But Mike was king, for me, and a good many others, I know.
Hello, Phil (Underwood) It's an unexpected pleasure to meet you again in these pages! Hope you're well and happy.It would be good to swop news, if you've got a moment.

And for those at Hertford in my time, we had a particularly good succession of history teachers. In the first couple of years I had little appetite for history, having spent what I thought were perfectly stupid lessons drawing Saxon villages and having the quality of my drawings critiqued by a young history teacher with a sarcastic tongue. As a small child I'd always been interested in history, and could recite the names and dates of the kings and queens back to the middle ages, but this lady (Miss F-----, for those who remember) completely put me off.

My delight, then, when returning to school in the UIV and finding that the wonderful Miss Mercer was going to be our teacher, was unbounded. She also taught us French, although I already enjoyed that and suspected even then it would be my degree choice. But she completely enthused me about history. I don't remember the syllabus, I just remember really enjoying the lessons and wondering how Miss F had managed to get it so terribly wrong.

Sadly Miss Mercer left the following year, but was followed by the inimitable Miss Coles, brisk and no-nonsense, but with a sharp (and sometimes slightly risque) sense of humour. She taught our O Level syllabus over two years: Brish History from 1815-1914. It's still one of my favourite historical periods. Miss Coles was responsible for me choosing to do A Level history, and also for choosing UCL as my number one university choice, as she was so enthusiastic about it as her alma mater. I was disappointed that the A Level syllabus went back to medieval, but she told me off roundly if I thought it was going to be about drawing medieval villages (how did she guess?!), and I ended up enjoying that too.

It could have been disastrous losing Miss Coles halfway through our A Level syllabus, but she was replaced by the lovely Miss Marter, who taught us with such gusto about the English Renaissance. I ended up with an A for History A Level, and sometimes wish, with hindsight, that I'd done a History degree rather than French (though I think history might have been harder work - I would actually have had to read the books rather than just the flyleaves )

Miss Marter was also responsible for the reference library, and in my UVI year an upper floor was added to double the space. In preparation, Miss M spent ages getting the books into order, recataloguing, mending, etc where necessary. I enjoyed helping her with this, and one time she found me in there on my own, getting on with some of these tasks unprompted. At the end of term she gave me a Hilliard miniature of Sir Walter Raleigh like the one we'd seen in the V&A when she took us there. I still have it, with the little note in her beautiful italic hand, thanking me for my help..."you win the prize!" Though definitely quite middle-aged, she married a year or two after I left, and became Mrs Roxburgh, and I remember visiting her with another OG at her home near Hertford. Sadly there was a note in one of the mags or newsletters recently to say she'd died in the last couple of years.

Sorry to have rambled on at such length - we had many good teachers at Hertford, including Queenie who has been amply described elsewhere, but these three history teachers really stick in my mind as the best of the bunch.

JULIANGARNER wrote:Extraordinary. I've ploughed all the way through eight pages of tghis stuff and nowhere is there a single mention of Michael Carrington, who must, SURELY be one the absolute all time great teachers by anyones' standards! Not in the classroom, necessary, but as housemaster of Thorn A he set us a moral example which I have treasured ever since. Mike took so many reject pupils under his very considerable wing - he was famous for this: Thorn A was a kind of last chance saloon for the very wayward) and really INVESTED in us. Actually, he loved us. With a passion. All of us. Even those he probably didn't. It was his methodology, I think. I know for a fact that he ferociously fought our pitch with disapproving colleagues; he also, frankly, took outrageous risks in the trust he had in us, a trust we didn't always deserve. He had no time for snobbery, social or - more importantly in the CH context - academic. He was - still is, I'm sure - the least judgemental man on earth, and one of the kindest: our girlfriends were put up in his family's spare bedroom on their frequent visits; pupils' cars were parked outside their house for use on leave days; Sunday lie-ins for the whole house were organised about 3 times a term, surely in the teeth of stiff opposition? Mike personally financed the production of my first attempt at playwrighting - a bunch of mates put together an agit-prop romp about a workers' revolution in a police state. Top management allegedly hated it - the odious David Newsome - which was just fine by me.
Sorry, this is turning into a tome! Actually, I could - perhaps should - write a book about this great, great man. Growing up in an all female family, one of the reason I was sent to CH was to get some male role models. I had some great ones - Chris Nicholson (who told me it was okay to want to be a writer), the late John Penny (who let me take Art A level when I'd failed the O level! When would THAT happen these days?), Duncan Noel-Paton (who let so many of us off the creative leash when he crashed into the school with his amazing drama department), Nick Plumley, who introduced me to classical music, investicative history and smoked salmon) the Rev. John Hall-Matthews (Christianity in action, not words)... But Mike was king, for me, and a good many others, I know.
Hello, Phil (Underwood) It's an unexpected pleasure to meet you again in these pages! Hope you're well and happy.It would be good to swop news, if you've got a moment.

Welcome to the forum Julian!

I remember you as a fellow "Sarf" East londoner! Eltham like Bob Pilbeam and Clive Walters? I was from Shooters Hill.

You are absolutely right about Mike "Des" Carrington and have expressed it far better than I could.

All I would add is firstly a link to an old thread where he does get mentioned and remembered.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=450

Secondly I took one of my daughters to an Old Blues Day around the year 2000 or shortly after. I hadn't visited the School in over 20 years.

We were walking down the Chapel Cloisters when I saw a familiar looking large figure walking towards me. Suddenly I heard equally familiar booming tones: "Miller AJH how are you?" he said and we had a chat.

I'd left the School 30 years earlier or as near as dammit yet he still knew who I was! He taught me English for a year or so and I did some Athletics but I was never in his House yet he was able to recall me! I think that exemplifies his dedication to the boys (and latterly girls) in his care.

JULIANGARNER wrote: Hello, Phil (Underwood) It's an unexpected pleasure to meet you again in these pages! Hope you're well and happy.It would be good to swop news, if you've got a moment.

Hello Julian, lovely to see you on the forum. I enjoyed your list of favourites very much, all extremely genuine people. Unfortunately I never had much to do with Mike C, though he was a hard man to miss. I suppose most of my memories of him involve him striding (slightly pigeon-toed, if I remember?) around various tracks and pitches bellowing encouragement to one and all. John Hall Matthews was very much a personal favourite - I watched the moon landing in his front room. And of course DNP. Nick Plumley was permanently crossed off my Christmas card list when he made me captain of the U/12s cricket team, then dropped me. Devastated.

Anyway, hope to see you contributing regularly, I'm sure you'll have much of interest to say.

I suspect catching up on nearly 35 years will take more than a moment, but I'll send you a PM...

Jo wrote:And for those at Hertford in my time, we had a particularly good succession of history teachers. In the first couple of years I had little appetite for history, having spent what I thought were perfectly stupid lessons drawing Saxon villages and having the quality of my drawings critiqued by a young history teacher with a sarcastic tongue. As a small child I'd always been interested in history, and could recite the names and dates of the kings and queens back to the middle ages, but this lady (Miss F-----, for those who remember) completely put me off.

Miss Marter was also responsible for the reference library, and in my UVI year an upper floor was added to double the space. In preparation, Miss M spent ages getting the books into order, recataloguing, mending, etc where necessary. I enjoyed helping her with this, and one time she found me in there on my own, getting on with some of these tasks unprompted. At the end of term she gave me a Hilliard miniature of Sir Walter Raleigh like the one we'd seen in the V&A when she took us there. I still have it, with the little note in her beautiful italic hand, thanking me for my help..."you win the prize!" Though definitely quite middle-aged, she married a year or two after I left, and became Mrs Roxburgh, and I remember visiting her with another OG at her home near Hertford. Sadly there was a note in one of the mags or newsletters recently to say she'd died in the last couple of years.

Miss Marter was able to bring History to life - even as Mrs Roxburgh! I had her for my years at Hertford, along with a great Biology teacher - Miss (Mrs?) Gardner - who went and got pregnant and left on Maternity leave bang in the middle of O levels! (I will never forgive her!!! She was fantastic, and whoever we go after lacked whatever it was that MADE biology GREAT)

Miss Morrison was a great teacher of English - and Miss Tucker would take a class of two a year - although terrified I actually did enjoy those classess.