Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

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Only a few inches of bath water was allowed if I remember rightly? Don't know if anyone ever checked this. In the bathroom it was 3 baths divided by curtains, and 4 washbasins.[/quote]

At Horsham one bath a week, with no privacy whatsoever. At one stage we were only allowed 5 inches of water, and this was checked.

DavidRawlins wrote:

Only a few inches of bath water was allowed if I remember rightly? Don't know if anyone ever checked this. In the bathroom it was 3 baths divided by curtains, and 4 washbasins.[/quote]

At Horsham one bath a week, with no privacy whatsoever. At one stage we were only allowed 5 inches of water, and this was checked.[/quote]

It seemed less than 4 inches It was the same for at least the 12 months after you left Col A (BTW were you, perchance nº 9?) ; the water limit was never formally lifted - peeps eventually stopped complaining if you had 5 millimetres too much. OTOH when surges put water right across the lav end ......... . I can't remember the 3 baths; AFAIR there were only two - on the right hand end as you went into the lav end; the one on the door side had a screen at the door end. The trough and bowls (?) in front of you and the urinals on the left behind you, the bog itself being behind a partial screen at the left hand end.
There were rails, presumably for curtains round the baths, but nothing on them.

Who checked up on the water level?

What happened to any boy attempting a nice hot bath?

4" of water allowed in the bath (wouldn't cover much of me, now....). Scrap of red ribbon attached to the chain gave the indicator of depth. Flimsy curtains in front of the three bath cubicles and four basin cubicles, so you never got much privacy. Especially in the junior house where the housemistress had a habit of whisking back the curtain to check on one's ablutions and to confirm that you were not wasting water.

CURTAINS ?????????????????

No such luxury at Horsham in my day.

Two baths with plenty of open space for spectators. PRIVACY never got into the CH dictionary in the 1950's

kerrensimmonds wrote: Especially in the junior house where the housemistress had a habit of whisking back the curtain to check on one's ablutions and to confirm that you were not wasting water.

Yes... Millie... checking on one's ablutions... right.

If only Social Services could have whisked her away for counselling!

but no curtains is a boy thing anyway, you even pee in the open.

englishangel wrote:but no curtains is a boy thing anyway, you even pee in the open.

Have you been PEEping again ?

sejintenej wrote:

DavidRawlins wrote:

Only a few inches of bath water was allowed if I remember rightly? Don't know if anyone ever checked this. In the bathroom it was 3 baths divided by curtains, and 4 washbasins.

At Horsham one bath a week, with no privacy whatsoever. At one stage we were only allowed 5 inches of water, and this was checked.[/quote]

It seemed less than 4 inches It was the same for at least the 12 months after you left Col A (BTW were you, perchance nº 9?) ; the water limit was never formally lifted - peeps eventually stopped complaining if you had 5 millimetres too much. OTOH when surges put water right across the lav end ......... . I can't remember the 3 baths; AFAIR there were only two - on the right hand end as you went into the lav end; the one on the door side had a screen at the door end. The trough and bowls (?) in front of you and the urinals on the left behind you, the bog itself being behind a partial screen at the left hand end.
There were rails, presumably for curtains round the baths, but nothing on them.[/quote]

Can´t remember any water limit, but as people filled up their washing bowls from the bath tap, and some inevitably got into the bath water, it didn´t matter. No privacy at all as one sat in the bath whilst all this was going on.
I do remember more than one occasion where the monitor left the bath running whilst he got changed, then leapt in, causing tidal waves all over the floor.
Using the "bog" whilst people were washing was a dangerous affair, as sliding lumps of carbolic soap along the ground so that it hit the slanted skirting board and hopefully looped back over the screen, meant there was no time for quiet contemplation on the throne.

We had a bath every day! I seem to remember a dire fuel shortage in the late 1940s, when the hot water ran out during the evening, and some of the seniors had to bath in the mornings. It is alleged that Buckingham Palace had lines painted on the baths to mark the 5inch level.

I thought the 5" restriction was because of the Suez crisis - an attempt to save on the heating fuel?

In my time, I am sure it was 4".........at least to start with, in 1957

Millie's Junior House limit was 3". In and out, quickly, before Millie swept the curtain back!

My first morning, after I had promptly fainted at morning prayers, I learned that I was to be a Bathroom Girl. I was set to work to remove the tidemarks from the three baths in Upper. I didn't realise that the marks around the big ancient baths were permanent.

I set to with the Gumption and a rag. I scrubbed, scrubbed and scrubbed. I couldn't understand why my efforts made absolutely no difference at all. Millie strode by, ferociously baring her upper inscisors, to inspect my standards of scrubbing. "Not good enough...do those baths again!" she insisted. Gumption! A slimy greyish paste in a tin! I was greatly relieved when I was allowed to abandon the stains, which looked exactly the same as when I'd begun.

My very first duty!

Once in a Senior House, nobody bothered about water levels....

Fjgrogan wrote:I thought the 5" restriction was because of the Suez crisis - an attempt to save on the heating fuel?

The Suez crisis never affected me !!

I can only speak for ThB circa 1960, but there was certainly no restriction on bathwater levels then. In fact I had deeper, hotter baths at school than were achievable at home (and they filled quicker than the bath in my present house).

The bath rota (for juniors at least) was rather complicated, because the first two years (LF/LE) went to bed an hour earlier than the third year (UF). This meant that the LF/LE, accounting for about two-thirds of the dorm, had two lav-ends and two bath sessions available per evening. This was not quite enough for two scheduled baths a week each, but the unscheduled bathtimes ("spare baths") were taken on a rota basis. As for the UF, they only had one bath session, but there were only about half as many of them, so they got about the same number of baths.

I can't remember how it worked in the senior dorm.

As for privacy, seeing that after games we shared a communal bath (four at a time) in the changing room, the lack of a curtain in the lav-end would hardly be noticed.

One of the great luxuries of monitorial existence was unlimited baths.