Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Some memories of CH cars/drivers.

1. A tiny 1930s Austin (we're talking about 1956) driven by Hector Buck of dubious memory, which included his initials AHB in the numberplate (in those days a bit of fun rather than a silly affectation). He was arrested, or certainly stopped, for drunk-driving it (but that was in pre-breathalyser days, I think he wasn't prosecuted).

2. A rather swish dark green Nash Metropolitan driven by the revered (I mean revered, not reverend) David Herbert. These were built in England for export only, I don't know where he got it from. I think his less imaginative colleagues regarded it as an affectation.

3. A Standard Vanguard estate driven by John Page. Nothing special about the car, but when he supervised Saturday evening House Baths, he would transport as many juniors as could fit in/on to it as possible. The record was believed to be 15. As the route from the swimming baths to Thornton B went up King Edward Road (a public highway, I think) he may have been breaking the law (as well as his springs) even then.

4. An ancient Riley driven by the barbers (he of the wooden leg, and pals) on their weekly visits.

5. Not a car: Seaman, in the earlyish days of his incumbency as headmaster, took driving lessons, on one of which he crashed and injured his head. Embarrassingly, it was bandaged up for a fortnight or so. I don't know whether he ever took the test.

Mr Torkington's Saab getting squashed in the big storm of 87 by a lime tree

Shippen's Renault 5 turbo that you could hear him screaming all the whole way to the bax

Flemmings little mini that always seemed unfeasible small for him

Martin's landy with kenyan stickers and a huge roof rack

Grimshaw's "army" landy that he used for CCF because their real one was (and probably still is) broken down ion a fibreglass shed behind Peele by the firing range

West's Landy that he drove too fast everywhere

What was it with CH teachers in the 80's and landrovers

Mr T's subsequent car was for many years an enormous Volvo estate which had some strange multi coloured buttons on his dashboard which probably helped to perpetuate the alien myth!

Mr Shippen went through a succession of BMW's before buying a Jaguar which he used to play very loud classical music out of. Somewhat bizarrely, he then bought a Ford KA and just before he retired, bought a long wheel base defender which I believe he still owns.

Mr Gladding also had a mini and every year on the last night of the summer term, people would try and move it!

There was no "try" about it......
Mr Gladding ended up with his mini in the Cloisters on my Grecians year, parked sideways. I'd never have thought they were wide enough to get a mini perpendicular to the walls, but they are....it couldn't be driven out, a few of us did the kind thing and helped lift it out.....!

J

I think in the end he used to move it offsite!

Chinky Buck's car was a Ford CYT 180 which he painted grass green so that he could sneak round Big Side and see if anyone was slacking at cricket. He also used to take anything up to 14 boys in it up to the baths for a pre-breakfast swim in the summer, joining in himself.

Are we talking about the same car of Buck's? The one I remember couldn't have held 6 people packed with sardine-tin efficiency, let alone 14.

Anyone else recalled Ian Talkington's SAAB?
It was crushed in the 1987 storms, but I remember him giving a number of us a lift to Cricket I think.....there wasn't enough room for Reg Williams to get in, so he hopped onto the roof......all we could see were his stripey socks dangling by the side window.
Mr T was completely unaware of Reg on roof, we were all laughing, he couldn't work out why......I think Reg slipped off on a corner, much to Ian's consternation when he realised....

Oh, and skating behind cars up the avenue was always fun after heavy snow - sliding behind a car, crouched down behind holding onto the bumper....dangerous, but a quick way to lessons if you could get on without being noticed, and could cope with the speed bumps...

J

Tom Keeley used to drive a Mini across big side at night with the lights off hoping to catch smokers or lovers

There was a story that some boys once carried the car into his classroom where he discovered it at the start of his morning Latin lesson

Don't know whether this was true, as it was supposed to have happened before I was at CH

B****r Hayden had a white Jag with red seats
Bwana Goodall had a long wheelbase landrover
A matron in Peele B reversed her car over one of her sausage dogs

In my first year at CH, Pete Warfield of England rugby fame had a Roller and a green Morgan convertible. I remember the roller cruising up the avenue as Pete hurried to class...

The best vehicule of the 80s has to be the Tony Waller bus! Waller picked this up second hand and it became our official school bus taking us to school matches much to the derision of hosting teams, especially Cranners. The bus was red and beige and pretty rusty. It was parked outside the Design school on back Ave near lamb Houses. Tony W was housematser of maine b so would nip up often to do mechanical repairs...

Bring back Baker had some yucky red Citroen estate...

Dr Hackett...always on a bike so I never knew what he had!

Mr West in his 2CV giving people lifts into Horsham.

Mr Robinson getting his MG dropped on the stones that separated the front and back avenues between Thornton.

A close friend rolling his mini whilst drunk up near Shelley's Wood one saturday evening whilst a grecian.

One of the kitchen staff in his Robin Reliant nearly going over whilst swerving thanks to another close friend pretending to kick it whilst cycling into Horsham.

Derek Baker in that huge Citroen.

Toby I remember the aftermath of the "Rolled Mini" incident - Me and Roger Garland saw it in a hedge and worked out what had happened by the various chunks of missing verge and gouges and paint on the road surface...

I also heard that the year after I left Mrs Jeffers foolishly allowed a couple of guys (No names given) to drive her car as they were shortly to take their test. They took it off site and had just passed Shelley's Wood ready to turn back up the Christ's Hospital Road towards the railway bridge. However they overshot the turn due to excess speed and crashed through the fence into the field. Apparently it took some explaining and I am not sure whether the car was repairable. Perhaps someone can elaborate?

Nick Kennedy asked Mr McCall if he could bring his car back to the school on the proviso he could leave the key with him as from what I could gather only School Monitors were allowed a car at the school (I could be wrong on this). Of course Nick being a clever chap gave McCall his key then disappeared a few days later having driven out of the grounds using the spare key he'd kept. Let's just say he wasn't allowed the car there anymore when he returned to school after a couple of days AWOL.

Also heard a rumour from my brother that a certain chap in LHA on his year kept a motorbike at school. Twas a deathtrap with leaking fuel tank, rubbish brakes etc and was kept in one of the garages where everyone used to smoke

And here's a pic of Ian Torkington's Saab, flattened.

Motorbike was mine it was 1989 and I did double maths with your brother and gave him back some copies of his wonderful 2000AD inspired hand drawn comics when we met up at the reunion

It was not a death trap just a bit scruffy - i brought it back after A-Levels for the last 2 weeks and hid it in disused garages behind sicker.

It did not leak petrol as such - just for a few drips out of each carb overflow after you stopped it - but they dripped on to top of crankcase and evaporated so in a garage made quite a smell. I bought it cheap for £120 and did all my own mechanics on it.

It was a Honda CB250N superdream numberplate CCH855T and it saw me through 3 years of uni and another 6 mths of temp work before the camchain snapped one day. Nothing wrong with the brakes as my brother will testify to the day we nearly had a head on crash on ricks hill on the back road between Horsham and Southwater

Years later my half brother brought a CG125 to the school and parked it in the Sports centre car park but security got wind of it and decided to disable it by cutting the HT Lead - luckily right by the cap as it was an integrated coil/lead that would have cost well over £100 to replace if even 1cm shorter - that was a far scruffier bike (but still mechanically sound and MOT'd)

Aah Wurzel he must have embellished the story a bit

I remember an Old Blue (I think it might have been Nick Angel) brought a beautiful looking modified yellow Mini back for OBD and drove it fairly quickly from the Front Ave between Barnes and Maine to the Back Ave. Unfortunately he misjudged the dip where the path between the houses' front doors is. One loud bang later and he'd ripped a hole in the gearbox... Ouch...

Fertii wrote:
A close friend rolling his mini whilst drunk up near Shelley's Wood one saturday evening whilst a grecian..

Mmmm i to remember the mini incident , if i remember rightly he had only had his licence a few days !!!!