Welcome to the unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum - for discussing everything CH/Old Blue related. All pupils, parents, families, staff, Old Blues and anyone else related to CH are welcome to browse the boards, register and contribute.
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....
Jude wrote: you work???? How do you find the time to play in here? I seem to have lost my life since I found this website!!!! My daughter keeps asking why I am laughing - as she never went to CH she doesn't completely understand.... but then neither do I really!!!
Being your own boss and working from home DOES have a few advantages!
It does indeed - except when it comes to VAT returns Tax returns and accouts periods - I worked from home with my own company for 5 years - until I almost had a breakdown with the numbers! I could do my job fine - Computer & Networks Consultant - but the minute a form to be filled in arrived I fell apart!
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
Jude wrote: It does indeed - except when it comes to VAT returns Tax returns and accouts periods - I worked from home with my own company for 5 years - until I almost had a breakdown with the numbers! I could do my job fine - Computer & Networks Consultant - but the minute a form to be filled in arrived I fell apart!
Yes, not my favourite pastime either.
However, my accountant is an Hertford Old Blue, whose family I've known since I was about 14. She relieves me of that particular burden.
Jude wrote: It does indeed - except when it comes to VAT returns Tax returns and accouts periods - I worked from home with my own company for 5 years - until I almost had a breakdown with the numbers! I could do my job fine - Computer & Networks Consultant - but the minute a form to be filled in arrived I fell apart!
Yes, not my favourite pastime either.
However, my accountant is an Hertford Old Blue, whose family I've known since I was about 14. She relieves me of that particular burden.
Damn it RR you have life mapped out don't you! someone to do this and so forth - you are lucky! we must have been at our relevant CH's at pretty much the same time - but at different schools!
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
Jude wrote: It does indeed - except when it comes to VAT returns Tax returns and accouts periods - I worked from home with my own company for 5 years - until I almost had a breakdown with the numbers! I could do my job fine - Computer & Networks Consultant - but the minute a form to be filled in arrived I fell apart!
Yes, not my favourite pastime either.
However, my accountant is an Hertford Old Blue, whose family I've known since I was about 14. She relieves me of that particular burden.
Damn it RR you have life mapped out don't you! someone to do this and so forth - you are lucky! we must have been at our relevant CH's at pretty much the same time - but at different schools!
I think that is why Julian started this, for just such a reason. Although most of the time we mess about on here it does have a serious side.
And I think some people probably find it quite cathartic in the " I now realise that I was not the only one affected" way.
Richard Ruck wrote:
Yes, not my favourite pastime either.
However, my accountant is an Hertford Old Blue, whose family I've known since I was about 14. She relieves me of that particular burden.
Damn it RR you have life mapped out don't you! someone to do this and so forth - you are lucky! we must have been at our relevant CH's at pretty much the same time - but at different schools!
I think that is why Julian started this, for just such a reason. Although most of the time we mess about on here it does have a serious side.
And I think some people probably find it quite cathartic in the " I now realise that I was not the only one affected" way.
Pity that a few more don't join in and admit that life was pretty horrendous - I guess that the traditions and the fact that the staff were nearly all spinsters from the age of corectivenes we were affected by it, but somehow the boys always seem to have got off lighter (prove me wrong guys!) I had so many punnishments just for being me that I really didn't want Chris my son to go to CH - what was more Fatty M was still there as were a couple of other staff from Hertford - the last thing I needed was my son to get tagged like me - in fact he only stayed 3 years before I pulled him out just before he committed suicide with his "housey belt"
He like me has put it to the back of his mind -but until recently I was ok - CH was CH, then everything fell apart a couple of years ago - and with it me - I wish he would do something about it - he just says"oh it's ion the past and it made me stronger" - nipple pinching, dead legging, - the first time we were allowed to take him out he was covered in bruises - which we photographed - and showed the school - nothing was done....
Ho hum never mind
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
Jude wrote: Damn it RR you have life mapped out don't you! someone to do this and so forth - you are lucky! we must have been at our relevant CH's at pretty much the same time - but at different schools!
Life isn't always as it may appear, Jude.
I'm afraid I'm not surrounded by people who do everything for me (not sure I'd like that, anyway!).
My situation is that I was made redundant in July 2003 when the company I worked for went norks skyward, after which I started my new company with a bloke who used to work with me. He is now in Canada looking after his aged father, so I'm effectively trying to run the thing on my own.
It is still a relatively new company, times are tough in our part of the music industry, so I have to concentrate on the bits of the business I'm good at, and this definitely does NOT include accountancy!!
By the way, it may interest you to know that my accountant didn't enjoy her time at Hertford and left as soon as she could (probably a year or two after you joined). From the stories recounted on this forum, I'm not really surprised!
Not sure how to reply to your last comments Jude.
"but somehow the boys always seem to have got off lighter (prove me wrong guys!) "
I'm one of those who enjoyed my time at school despite excessive amounts of punishment. Having my ears flicked from behind dergatory nicknames and the rest. They just became something to put up with. (got better as you got older).
From reading the comments at Hertford I would agree that we had it easier.
AKAP wrote:Not sure how to reply to your last comments Jude.
"but somehow the boys always seem to have got off lighter (prove me wrong guys!) "
I'm one of those who enjoyed my time at school despite excessive amounts of punishment. Having my ears flicked from behind dergatory nicknames and the rest. They just became something to put up with. (got better as you got older).
From reading the comments at Hertford I would agree that we had it easier.
It certainly feels like it - although I am also trying to look at the funnier side of things at CH Herts - see new topic dormitories etc...
But from what my two did 1 @ CH, then Millfield, the other at prep school - they didn't have the bullying system that CH has had - it gets perpetuated by the fact that as a squit you are not worth anything to anyone as you are the youngest, as a 2nd former you get a little bit over the squits, but not much else and so on until you can demand the squite and all the forms below to do the things you were made to do - it was being bashed out at Herts - and when I got to 4th form (ie start of Seniors) I tried to remember the horrible things done to me, and not purpetuate the cruelty.
Last edited by Jude on Tue Nov 29, 2005 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
I don't agree that the boys had it easier, only " differently" - and certainly this changed with the decades.
My brother was at Horsham at the same time I was at Hertford: he never complained about bullying, but was unhappy nevertheless. My first 3 years at Hertford were a living hell, from day 1- I didn't in, and became the class scape-goat/ whipping girl, until I developed an aloof carcass that managed to deter the bullies. I won't go into details, but it certainly scarred me for a long time ( comments on being "cold" in another thread certainly apply here, and even today my mother sometimes tells me that I am very " hardbitten").
My son went to Horsham in '91, and was brutally treated, to the point where I had to call the Headmaster and lodge a formal complaint, and indeed threaten that I would take measures with the Board and local authorities if anything more happened to him. I eventually took him away and sent him to KES, where he found the change so radical that his gratitude was touching ( the difference in fees is notable). But the damage was done, and I identify with Jude - I sometimes see a "deadness" in my son's eyes , a terrible sadness which goes back to those days at CH.
It seems inconceivable that in our day & age bullying, in any form, is still acceptable - I remember being told at one point that my son " invited trouble" from his tormentors ..... much like girls in short skirts invite being assaulted, right ?
I would like to think that in today's CH bullying, whether physical or psychological, is finally being wiped out - any comments from current pupils ?
B.
Hertford - 5s/2s - 63-70
" I wish I were what I was when I wanted to be what I am now..."
Thank you B. I was a target in 5's - not only did I have an unpronouncable surname, but I was tall (nearly 5'11") had a good size bust, and atthe point of entry was very intelligent... I learnt to go dumb, stay dumb (which affected my work badly) and hide behind an incredibly thick wall - to the point that today I am having psychotherapy not just for the sexual abuse that my father did every holiday, but also to reduce the wall i have built up - I have been called Ice Queen, and other not so nice things, and am still very difficult to get to know apparently - although I have an incredible raport with 17 -20yr olds - and am being encouraged to retrain in counselling sor that age group... I think however, i have so much baggage it wouldn't be good!
My son is damaged thanks to the bullys at CH - my daughter hasn't encountered the CH attitude, but agrees that bullying still goes on in so many different forms - and yet the adults seem oblivious - once a bully always a bully, and being bullied would often make you into a bully as well - so it increases.
In this day and age, children should be allowed to be children, Adults should protect them, and bullies need to be taken and asked why they bully, and their issues addressed. Chris was accused of bringing it on himself - but he has never raised a hand in anger - only ever in defence.
I wish I had not sent him to CH - perhaps he would still be the happy young chap that he was before he got there... I thought I was doing something worthwhile and things had changed - how wrong can a parent be?
Last edited by Jude on Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
I've said this elsewhere, but it's worth repeating - I'm sure that this type of bullying had no place at Horsham during the '70s, and I'm convinced that others on here will agree. It doesn't seem to have been such a big issue previously, either, even allowing for an element of the older 'stiff upper lip' culture.
Of course, there were isolated incidents but these were usually noticed and dealt with fairly quickly. A 'bullying' culture just wasn't there.
Obviously, in any generation of pupils there will be a few who seem a bit 'different' to their peers, and it is these kids who are probably the most vulnerable. However, certainly in the senior houses, there was a feeling of 'live and let live' and peer-pressure prevented any serious incidents.
Perhaps I'm looking back through rose-tinted glasses, as I was never picked on myself.
From time to time, a junior would run away through homesickness or general unhappiness, but if bullying did ever cause this sort of thing to happen I was certainly never aware of it.
There were also those who, for whatever reason, did not enjoy being at boarding school (or even, specifically, being at C.H.) and who left at the earliest opportunity. Again, as far as I know, this was never as a result of being bullied.
Others may view things differently, of course, but for what it's worth that's how I remember things.
All of which makes it more surprising that the problem seems to have surfaced years later when you would think that the culture would be even less forgiving than it was in our day.
Maybe I was unaware of it, but in general I think that sort of thing was stamped on before it got out of hand......I remember milking and dead legs which Jude has mentioned before, but I wasn't aware that it was anything but an isolated annoyance.
AKAP wrote:Not sure how to reply to your last comments Jude.
"but somehow the boys always seem to have got off lighter (prove me wrong guys!) "
I'm one of those who enjoyed my time at school despite excessive amounts of punishment. Having my ears flicked from behind dergatory nicknames and the rest. They just became something to put up with. (got better as you got older).
From reading the comments at Hertford I would agree that we had it easier.
This has developed into an interesting thread. One persons bullying is another persons "banter". I can remember having personal possessions defaced or destroyed I also recall physical assaults. There was also a non grassing culture so you would not make a complaint.
However as AKAP (who was around at the same time as me) says it eventually became something to put up with and if you made yourself ignore it then it didn't happen so often. I was small for my age but then grew about a foot in a year as a Dep and became able to effectively retaliate physically if necessary.
I guess 33 years on the question is should we have had to put up with it or was it just a "normal" part of growing up?
At the risk of being branded sexist, but speaking as a married father of 3 daughters, girls frequently seem to be able to misconstrue or read something unintended into words and actions. I just wonder if that tendency might contribute to a perception of psychological bullying amongst the girls? Please don't think I'm trying to trivialise your experiences some of them read as horrendous.
on the whole I think girls are just bitchy - only rarely did it ever get to physical things - boys however, often cannot express their emotions and thus become involved with fisticuffs etc.. however, to repeat the sad incident - Chris was very badly bullied, the headmistress actually had verbal and written proof of it, but the house parents denied it all and said he brought it upon himself... that I cannot condone.
Jude Comber (nee Kelynack) 5's 5.38 1975-1980 Herts. To Learn - read, to Know - write, to MASTER - Teach
Jude wrote:on the whole I think girls are just bitchy - only rarely did it ever get to physical things - boys however, often cannot express their emotions and thus become involved with fisticuffs etc.. however, to repeat the sad incident - Chris was very badly bullied, the headmistress actually had verbal and written proof of it, but the house parents denied it all and said he brought it upon himself... that I cannot condone.
How on earth did they justify saying he brought it on himself?
