Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Sadly Patrick Cullen (Horsham Staff 54-87), one of the most amiable teachers at CH in my day, died in January aged 81.

Reportedly there will be no memorial service at CH, but there will be one, to which everyone is welcome, on Saturday 18 April at 2.30pm in the parish church at East Knoyle, Wilts. East Knoyle is just off the A 350 five miles north of Shaftesbury.

I vaguely remember him, Rex, though I don't think he ever taught me.

Was he referred to as 'Paddy' Cullen by any chance ?

J.R. wrote:I vaguely remember him, Rex, though I don't think he ever taught me.

Was he referred to as 'Paddy' Cullen by any chance ?

Yes he was known as "Paddy."

He projected the film nights in Big School if I remember rightly and taught Modern Languages.

I had him for French at one point and he came across as a decent bloke.

I think he was also a housemaster in Thornton B but I might have that wrong.

Sorry to read this.

RIP.

paddy Cullen taught me O and A level German between 1980-1984. He was an inspirational teacher to me and helped me a lot in my last year when I started finding German A level a struggle.

He was part of the trio: Lough, Cullen and Jeffers.

And it was he who for a moment lived at Whites..metioned elsewhere on this Forum.

RIP sir.

"Herr" Cullen taught me O level German.

You know the expression "No one forgets a good teacher". I was lucky to be able to name the following whose teaching I can still recite to my children more than a quarter century after leaving CH:

Patrick Cullen: German. RIP
Richard West: English
Louis Bardout: French
Trappes-Lomax: Latin
Clive Kemp: Latin. RIP
Richard Maddren: Chemistry
Christopher Vincent-Smith: Physics
Christopher Nicholson: Maths
David O'Meara: Maths. RIP
David Clements: Music
David Elliott: Music. RIP

To those masters no longer with us, as CHAZ said, RIP sir.

Probably the teacher I knew best. He taught me German, and then when John Page moved from ThB to ThA, he became the housemaster of ThB. The first thing we noticed on returning for the new school year was that the senior housemaster's study, which under John Page had been institutional green-and-cream, and smelt of stale cigarettes, with a few very ordinary faded and predictable prints on the wall, was suddenly painted in daring pastels, smelt of pipe tobacco and real coffee, and had original works by modern artists hanging.
Pat Cullen had been engaged to a moderately well-known actress named Sarah Lawson. It did not last long, perhaps she was put off by her one and only visit to CH Sunday evening chapel. She later married the actor Patrick Allen, and presumably led a more glamorous life as a result. Be that as it may, he soon found another fiancée and married her. Now, John Page, after his own surprising marriage, said that West Gun Copse Road proved too far away (about 100 yds) from the house to manage it properly. So when Pat got married, he lived in Worthing for a time.
He taught German very well. As a housemaster, I am in two minds. He wanted to be seen as "liberal", but deep down he wasn't. I was amazed at how staunchly he defended the right of the Common Room to exclude women, even women teachers. He also was strangely old-fashioned, always referring to his wife as "Mrs Cullen". And pally liberalism in a housemaster could look like weakness. I remember once how he returned from Worthing at about 1.30am and found me reading in the bath. John Page would have said: "Scuffil, what do you think you're doing? Go to bed." Pat said: "M.. Michael, do you realize what time it is?" If that was all he could say, it would have been better to say nothing, but I'm afraid it was typical. At the same time, though, he seemed to us like a breath of fresh air. He played the guitar and regularly acted large parts in staff plays. On the occasions I met him after I left, he was always friendly, generous and hospitable. How he coped in the modern world I am not quite sure. He was a post-war liberal who could not quite come to terms with what happened in the 1960s.

If memory serves me right, Paddy was Junior Housemaster in Barnes B with Cherniasky, before they were both replaced in 1960 by Miller and Simms.
Paddy took me for German in "O"level year, and up to then I had done quite well with Pop Massen. Along with others I started to struggle and Paddy instituted extra classes for the strugglers at his house. He must have decided that I was already a lost cause as he said I didn't need extra tuition and I duly failed.
Can't say I was happy with his decision or the result, or with him, for that matter.

michael scuffil wrote: at about 1.30am and found me reading in the bath

*boggles*

I'm wracking my brains, but I just can't picture him for some reason.

J.R. wrote:I'm wracking my brains, but I just can't picture him for some reason.

He's on a Thornton B house photo.
See viewtopic.php?f=55&t=2653
(next to the matron).



As for reading in the bath, where else could I read at 1.30am? My study-light would have been a dead giveaway.

Thanks Michael.

Got it now.

[quote="Nonentity"]"Herr" Cullen taught me O level German. "No one forgets a good teacher"
paddy organised funny weihnachtsfesten in a room next to the tuck shop.... he was obsessed from bavaria, and was a good teacher... i remember him well... and now i live in austria, and speak mostly german... it has a little to do with him, i`m sure...

He had a son who was in the band and may have been in Dick Rucks era?

CHAZ wrote:He had a son who was in the band and may have been in Dick Rucks era?

Yes, I remember him as a baby in my last year, and I met him again on a visit in about 1974, when he was looking forward to joining the school.