Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

The thread realting to the death of the band captain in 1990 brought some very sad memories flooding back about Tom Snook.

It was November 1997 - Tom Snook was a UF in Peele A and I was a dep in Maine A. I had known him in Maine B when we were both juniors. He was in the same play as me - Mort by Terry Pratchet. I had walked back to Peele A with him after the cast party (I lived in the attached house at the time).

The next morning, I was woken at about 6.30 in the morning by frantic banging on the study door... About 5 minutes later, my Dad came up the stairs absolutely ashen-faced... Tom Snook had died...

What had happened was he had felt ill in the night, and instead of waking up anyone in the dorm, he had gone to Matrons where he had collapsed because of an asthma attack. Mr Castro (in his first term) had found him outside Matron's at 6.30 when he had come up the central staircase.

I remember going to breakfast and no one knew - I had tears streaming down my face....

They cancelled the 1st period that Saturday to announce to everyone in chapel what had happened... Very sad... He was a very popular guy.

This sounds really terrible for all concerned.

Quite a few of us, when we were at C.H., would have had some experience of parents and other close relatives dying, but having one of your contemporaries pass away at such an age is also very traumatic.

What is extraordinary, though, is how a community such as C.H. always manages to come to terms with these things.

How did you all cope on that Saturday morning, having had around 45 minutes to hear the news, attempt to come to terms with it, and then get straight into a double French lesson or something similar?

It's good to have your mates around at these times.....

Well, a lot of Tom's year didn't go to lessons for the day really - they just wandered around all day - they didn't want to be taught and the staff didn't want to teach...

They cancelled the disco that evening and had a compline in chapel - over 300 people came...

For some reason, one of the big oak trees in the middle of the running track became a bit like a shrine to Tom with a lot of flowers/candels and things that evening... I think it helped with the grief.

The school also opened a book of condolence for Tom - the book then went to Tom's Mum which gave her a lot of comfort - again i think this was a good idea by CH...

The school really did rally round though - the shock of losing someone in a close community like Ch can really affect you.

I remember the morning well, Mr McKenna had just woken us up and said we should go to chapel rather than first lesson but he wouldn’t say why, the bell seemed endless tolling, then we were in the balcony and could see numerous ppl crying and we weren’t sure why. Then it was announced, the school seemed so quiet for the following week. After chapel I had English and the girls in my class were crying. Though I never meet him or didn’t even really know who Tom was I felt the lose, it was a community, one that pulled together in time of need. Now things like this are part CH, and I was thinking now proud to sign the book of condolences, I was proud to be housey....

[Spell checked! Mod]

Hobbit wrote:[Spell checked! Mod]

well thank F*CK for that! long may it last!
no offence hobbit, but at least it's readable now.

indeed, tom snook much missed etc etc, remember my time in MaB with him etc etc. HOWEVER...

please be careful not to create a false memory of him though, this is the most disrespectful thing you can do to a dead person (akin to p1ssing on their gravestone, though i'm sure less intentional)
tom snook was not, ever, a 'very popular guy', though perhaps he should have been. plum, he may well have been praiseworthy in your eyes. but you, unlike a great deal of blues going through CH, are a really great guy and can take people for who they are and recognise the good in people, not just call people the same names as everyone else does. i, like many people, will be eternally grateful to you for this.
to most people, cetainly in our MaB, he was 'just another jock'. many of us who were there will remember a certain contemporary of his who just stood outside chapel and cried such as i have never seen anyone cry before, 'we used to be so f*cking horrible to him and he'd just take it, we'd keep bullying him and bullying him and he'd never f*cking do anything, tom i'm so sorry...'

Tom Snook was not worshipped. He was constantly bullied.

Idolising someone after they have died, will never make up for the way they were treated during their lifetime.

sorry guys, i'm sure that wasn't easy for some of you. i mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone. i just felt all that should be said before we go any further.

Yes, Tom was bullied, but not in his senior house (or at least nothing like the extent he was in Maine B)... In the circle I was in, within the cat of Mort, and afaik in Peele A, he was a popular guy...

Many thanks for the kind words about me Hendrik - I'm not sure how true they are though!

What a sad thread.

In my day a boy called Richard Sears Mullins was found hanged, by "Bomber" Nicholson if I remember rightly, in Leigh Hunt A downstairs toilets. He was later buried in Itchingfield Cemetery.

We were told it was "an experiment that went wrong" and I never subsequently heard anything to contradict that version of events.

Like Hobbit mentions above I remember feeling a profound sense of shock even though I didn't know Sears Mullins myself. There were boys in the House that had been in Leigh Hunt A with him so it must have felt far worse for them.

Emotions were not overtly displayed during the late sixties in the way that they sometimes are now. I recall a sombre Chapel Service and then people got on with it in their own way, some coping by resorting to black humour.

Similar to the day Richard Slater killed himself on the railway.....

This is the first time I've written on here tho my Dad and brother (Great Plum) seem to be on here loads. I felt I had to say something though after reading my brother's recollections of the day that Tom died. I knew Tom as he was on my year but i knew Tom mostly because he was my mum's tutee... if I didn't know where Mum was, Tom always new. I got a card from Tom's mum not long after the funeral; it read 'Thank you for sharing your mum with Tom.' Makes me well up even thinking about it!! I remember one of the girls in my house saying to me in breakfast 'I know it was Mort last night, but noone's died', she was so upset when she found out in chapel. But that day was a special one, I sat with a random group of people some of who were friends, others were just shocked and we watched the flag go up to half mast. I heard that the night before Tom died after his performance in Mort, 'I have fulfilled my lifetime ambition... I have made a whole theatre laugh!'. It seems a bit romantic but I like to think it's true.

Welcome Al... what do you mean I post here loads?

I echo what Al says about Tom...

You are always on this thing.... I don't understand it! I keep getting lost! The big Bro forums are much easier to use!! Though I'm sure I'll understand one day why I seemed to read pages and pages where people were writing all about fish and thinkin it was funny...! Only 10 days to go Matt...!

Alice83 wrote:You are always on this thing.... I don't understand it! I keep getting lost! The big Bro forums are much easier to use!! Though I'm sure I'll understand one day why I seemed to read pages and pages where people were writing all about fish and thinkin it was funny...! Only 10 days to go Matt...!

The Big Brother forums *shudders* will be easy to use because it's for simpletons...

*ducks at the anticipated barrage of abuse*

10 sleeps!

Great Plum wrote:

Alice83 wrote:You are always on this thing.... I don't understand it! I keep getting lost! The big Bro forums are much easier to use!! Though I'm sure I'll understand one day why I seemed to read pages and pages where people were writing all about fish and thinkin it was funny...! Only 10 days to go Matt...!

The Big Brother forums *shudders* will be easy to use because it's for simpletons...

*ducks at the anticipated barrage of abuse*

10 sleeps!

It's rather rum
That he, Great Plum
Should be so dumb
To cock his intellectual thumb
At Brother B
When only he
So rude could be
To watchers Alice, Cath and me.

We thus refuse
To light a fuse
No b****y use
To shout abuse!

.

I thought I may get in trouble for that...

But anyway, back to the topic...

DavebytheSea wrote:

Great Plum wrote:The Big Brother forums *shudders* will be easy to use because it's for simpletons...

*ducks at the anticipated barrage of abuse*

10 sleeps!

It's rather rum
That he, Great Plum
Should be so dumb
To cock his intellectual thumb
At Brother B
When only he
So rude could be
To watchers Alice, Cath and me.

We thus refuse
To light a fuse
No b****y use
To shout abuse!

.

Well said, DBTS. You're getting married this summer, GP. The rest of us merely have to contend with the mundane reality of our own lives and BB just adds a little extra oomph. (I nearly said marriages/ relationships instead of lives, but don't want to write anything disparaging so close to kick off for you!) BTW, don't let Jude see that the words Big Brother have entered the forum again. We might hear the fallout as she explodes!