House shirt colours

[michael scuffil]

From 10 years prior to MidA 15: not much changed between my time and his. There had been a change in about 1950, and there was another in about 1961, but the patterns were affected more than the colours. My Thorn B shirt was purple and white stripes, but it changed to hoops before I left, and I remember my first house captain whose shirt dated from when he first started in 1948 had something slightly different too. Mid A in my day was red and black (I think). These colours seem to have been totally arbitrary, unlike the school shirt.

We alternated between house shirts and blue shirts while the other was at the laundry. It was a matter of organization to ensure that two teams both wearing blue shirts didn't play each other. Sometimes we had to collect the other shirt from matron for this purpose, and she wasn't pleased.

[wurzel]

In the 80's LHB was Maroon & Gold, LHA was plain light Blue, they then swapped with Peele B when the block system was introduced (83 ?) then the jnr house kept Maroon/gold until becoming a girls house and LHA was green white hoops.

We all had 3 rugby shirts plain blue, plain white and house, 2 clean 1 at laundry, this allowed there to never be a case where 2 houses only had the same coloured shirts available for matches.

In fact I found a list in an old briefcase recently which is what we had to take to school. Basically 3 rugby shirts, 2 rugby shorts, 2 pairs rugby socks, 1 each shirt, shorts & socks for gym, 12 white cotton hankies, 2 flannels, shoe cleaning kit, Jumper (if UF or above), non marking gym shoes, rugby/football boots, outdoor trainers. That was it - this must have been 81- 3 when we still were issues pj's underwear, towels & shoes by the school.

[cstegerlewis]

Come on Ian, you could still get school issue of all of that when we left as well in 89, although I remember DM's starting to infiltrate, and not many grey y-fronts by the deps year.

[AndrewH]

.......

Lamb A Similar to Thorn B but bigger hoops

......

Maine A Yellow and navy hoops

Maine A was Amber and Black hoops (in 1970, but I don't think that it had changed by '77)

Lamb A was Maroon and White hoops, these were larger hoops than the Maine A ones (about 4" rather than 1.5").

We also had two plain coloured shirts, one White (at least some of the time) and one navy.

I continued to use all three until they fell apart after leaving CH.

I would guess that the choice was made from those available from John Lewis, so if a colour combination was discontinued another was chosen.

[Jo]

It seems so weird that Horsham houses changed colours on what seems like a regular basis. The house colours at Hertford were simple and straightforward - one colour each (except 5's as they couldn't get purple scarves initially so we had yellow), and they remained the same, certainly through my 8 years there.

With so many more houses at Horsham, I can see why they needed at least two colours per house to maintain some sort of distinction, but there doesn't seem to have been any lasting loyalty to the house colours (well ok, they're only colours, but we were quite fiercely loyal to ours at Hertford).

[Katharine]

I couldn't agree more, Jo!

[wurzel]

Craig,

Definately pre 89 I got a pair of DM shoes when still in LHB so pre girls (I went up to LHA for UF), I remember the changeover from school issued DB shoes to "black lace up 4 holes" as my DM shoes didn't actually comply being 3 holes. Sadly I still have 2 stripey CH towels that i use when camping as so hard wearing.

Is was about that time that Duvet's came in as well instead of sheets and blankets, I think it co-incided with the move to house boilers rather than the big boiler house. I definitely remember the girls house getting washing machines for undies and the inflated insurance claims as one after the other they all caught fire within the first year as they were being over used. I think we were all allowed to use own underwear from around then but tended to keep the "last 100 years" Morley 's provided as they were actually pretty comfortable.

The only other thing I remember is some houses had their own gym shirts, LHB definately had some lemon yellow ones with a red crown on the front that Bob Sillett would sell you to bolster house funds, I don't know whether other houses did the same.

[jhopgood]

It seems so weird that Horsham houses changed colours on what seems like a regular basis.

With so many more houses at Horsham, I can see why they needed at least two colours per house to maintain some sort of distinction, but there doesn't seem to have been any lasting loyalty to the house colours (well ok, they're only colours, but we were quite fiercely loyal to ours at Hertford).

I'm not so sure that they regularly changed colours as according to my 1946 copy of Housey, all houses had the same colours as we did from 59 - 66.
I have a feeling that changes started with the advent of Junior/Senior Houses and then got even more complex when the girls got involved.

[englishangel]

sorry

We are still using two towels we bought on our honeymoon in 1975 having gone without any swimming towels. well not using them at home, I took them into work for the kitchen.

[Mid A 15]

.......

Lamb A Similar to Thorn B but bigger hoops

......

Maine A Yellow and navy hoops

Maine A was Amber and Black hoops (in 1970, but I don't think that it had changed by '77)

Lamb A was Maroon and White hoops, these were larger hoops than the Maine A ones (about 4" rather than 1.5").

We also had two plain coloured shirts, one White (at least some of the time) and one navy.

I continued to use all three until they fell apart after leaving CH.

I would guess that the choice was made from those available from John Lewis, so if a colour combination was discontinued another was chosen.

I think we mean the same thing. Re Maine A amber puts me in mind of orange rather than yellow and the colours were closer to Yellow than orange as I recall. I also cannot tell navy from black very easily so you are probably right there!

I notice I made a mistake with Mid B. Green and Blue hoops should read Green and Black (although they could be Navy).

Like you we also had a navy blue and a white shirt too.

[AndrewH]

I think we mean the same thing. Re Maine A amber puts me in mind of orange rather than yellow and the colours were closer to Yellow than orange as I recall. I also cannot tell navy from black very easily so you are probably right there!

I think that they started as amber, but by the time they had been through the school laundry a few times...

[cstegerlewis]

I remember the LHB shirts, IIRC they were unique to Bob.

I definitely still had shoes provided until Grecians, perhaps it was optional, but I definitley remember the smalls in Col A Air passages at the Lav Ends after the girls starte dusing there own washing machines - all rather too exciting for hormonal teenage boys I should think!

[Mid A 24]

Could anyone help to settle an ongoing argument I'm having with another OB, who is about 7 years younger than me (so we only just didn't overlap at CH).

What colours are the different house shirts?

I understand that they might have changed "recently" and that junior houses now have different colours to senior houses. What have they changed to, and why was this done? Do senior houses now have little to do with junior houses? I hear that you can now choose your senior house...

We used to have a gold shirt and a blue shirt for school matches, and a house shirt for house matches. For example in Peele we had maroon-white stripes, and in Hunt (later in Mid B but not Mid A) we had green-white stripes.

I can't remember any of the other colours so if anyone can come up with a complete list from c.1990, that would, in a small way, make my day!

Cheers!
Tim.

I know it's not exactly what you wanted to know but can I please inform you of the colours of the boys' block houses please?

Peele- Mainly green with white
Thornton (sadly no longer a boys house)- red and white stripes
Middleton ('We're red, we're green, we're the best you've ever seen...MIDDLETON! MIDDLETON!')- red and green quarters (truly disgusting....)
Lamb- Mainly black with red and yellow. Red and white dragon crest for A and B sides (cannot remember which one's which)
Maine- Black and white stripes with a few navy stripes I think.

[hunta42]

there is defiante rivalry between Grecians East and Greciand West. It is usually argued who are the better houseparents Walsh or Fleming as both take different approaches.
It has to be said EAST IS BEAST!!!

[Sean]

When I was in Mid B, our house jersey was Green/Black hoops. We also had a white jersey and a dark blue jersey. The first XI hockey team played in a Yellow/Gold jersey, the first XV rugby team played in a Blue jersey with 2 yellow/gold hoops. The 2nd XV wore a distinctive jersey too but I cant remember it as did the 1st XI football team.