What would you say

[Mid A 15]

was the single best thing you gained from CH?

I would say that it broadened my mind and made me a more rounded individual. People have often commented that I can generally find something vaguely relevant and intelligent to say on most subjects of conversation. If that is true then I attribute it in no small part to CH.

Sport was my passion when I arrived there, playing and watching, and not a lot has changed in the intervening 40 plus years!

However when I arrived at 11 sport was pretty well my SOLE interest. I can still in my mind's ear (is there such a phrase?) hear Ron "Nog" Lorimer saying "Andrew your interest in sport is admirable but you really ought to try and participate in the cultural life of the school." I'm not sure I did so enough at the time to satify RJL but the seed was sown and I have done so subsequently.

We need a new topic to liven things up so what's your single best thing from CH??

[J.R.]

Probably giving me the strength to stand up and say what I think even if it upsets certain peoples views.

I think some old hack once described it as the 'publish and be damned' attitude

[Eruresto]

It's given me fertile ground in which to grow and flourish. I just think I'd have missed out on so much that's now day-to-day routine (including the much feared lat. lit. tests) had I not gone here.

[loringa]

Probably giving me the strength to stand up and say what I think even if it upsets certain peoples views.

I think some old hack once described it as the 'publish and be damned' attitude

The Duke of Wellington actually.

The best thing CH gave me was sufficiently good an education to enable me to get the job I wanted. Schooldays were fine but only as a precursor to real life.

[Katharine]

Probably giving me the strength to stand up and say what I think even if it upsets certain peoples views.

I think some old hack once described it as the 'publish and be damned' attitude

This is one of JR's opinions that I DO agree with! I don't agree with many of his but I do agree that this is probably what CH gave me. But it has also given both of us (I hope) the ability to listen to the other point of view politely and not shout it down; but argue against it, if necessary.

[midget]

How to enjot learning. That is not to say that I enjoyed all lessons, but I do enjoy learning new things, and is why I am furious that HMG has decided not to give any support to subjects that are a equal or lower than any qualifications you already have.

[michael scuffil]

I too agree with JR on this.

I have often asked (and my parents sometimes asked me) whether it was worth my going (and their paying for me to go) to CH. The thing to do is compare it with the alternative. I would have gone otherwise to Upper Latymer, one of the best direct grant schools in London (I was a bright boy). Academically, there was not much in it. In my year, the number of Oxbridge open awards won from CH and Latymer was precisely the same. So what was different? Not least, curiously, living in the country. In those pre-car days, getting out of London was a rare treat. And at CH I didn't have to commute for an hour a day. Living in Thornton B, I got a fair amount of exercise just walking (or marching) to school or the dining hall or wherever and back. The house system, which brought you into contact with different age-groups, was extremely valuable. Living away from parents between the ages of 13 and 17 probably preserved my good relationship with them. The lack of virtually any material comforts then still makes me appreciate them all the more now. Playing rugger on a cold wet afternoon puts most other hardships in perspective. Also, it was at CH that I first came into contact with the English middle class, a species I had otherwise encountered only in books. Like them or loathe them, one needed to understand (and eventually join) them. The academically and artistically gifted were looked up to. Above all, CH tolerated eccentrics, even celebrated them.

And there's the inestimable advantage (in my view) of having had a pretty unique expeience. Whatever else, CH was different.

[Eruresto]

Above all, CH tolerated eccentrics, even celebrated them.

Thank goodness!

[Angela Woodford]

Single best thing?

Very difficult... I don't know whether to say how grateful I was to escape from enforced evangelical Christianity or to gain the company of much cleverer and gifted friends, who, when eccentricity prevailed or loyalty/endurance were required, were great girls with whom to be incarcerated.

Oh, and I don't know if it's always been a good thing, but realising that I should stick at a difficult situation and not give up.

Munch

[blondie95]

Probably the ability to learn how to live with other people and to look after myself at 16! Without that i very much doubt iwould have survived at uni...most of my friends really struggled with the whole large group sharing showers thing etc to me it was not a problem it was CH but without the houseparents!
Secondly the belief in myself that i am a nice person who people like

[Vonny]

most of my friends really struggled with the whole large group sharing showers thing etc to me it was not a problem

Did you have communal showers at CH then I know there were open showers in the boys houses but I can say 100% I never had a shower with other girls the whole time I was at CH. I can't remember now if the downstairs showers were open plan in the girls houses - if they were I never once used them!

[cj]

Tolerance of others.

[englishangel]

I have been struggling with this one, and cj has put it in to words. I am bumptious now and one of my pet hates is people who are thick for a living (BB contestants a pet peeve) but as the oldest and most academically gifted of 4 and the cleverest and most sporty at my country primary school, going to CH made me realise that there were other people who were much more clever in all ways than I was, I would have been impossible as an adult if I had sailed through Grammar School the way I sailed through primary school.

[Katharine]

going to CH made me realise that there were other people who were much more clever in all ways than I was, I would have been impossible as an adult if I had sailed through Grammar School the way I sailed through primary school.

I didn't discover that there were some people better at Maths than me until I reached University - does that make me an impossible adult?

[blondie95]

most of my friends really struggled with the whole large group sharing showers thing etc to me it was not a problem

Did you have communal showers at CH then I know there were open showers in the boys houses but I can say 100% I never had a shower with other girls the whole time I was at CH. I can't remember now if the downstairs showers were open plan in the girls houses - if they were I never once used them!

well lave ends consisted of about 6 shower cubicles and open sink rows so not the privacy of your own bathroom you would get at home!