Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

My parents were told of the school by the headmistress of my primary school and I sat the LCC exam. (The LCC became the GLC in 1965 so my year was the last of the LCC I believe).

I'm not sure if I was the first from my primary school. A boy called Geoffrey Million lived in my road and had left CH before I got there but I don't know whether or not he attended my primary school.

However subsequently, from the same primary school, Karen Dewdney (?spelling) went to Hertford in about 1968 and Andrew Sizer arrived at Horsham during the late sixties or early seventies. He was probably there at the same time as Mr Ruck and others of that age group. There may well have been others but I am not aware of them.

Thought we needed a new thread here

My primary school teacher knew about CH and she must have told my parents- certainly no-one told me! We were evacuated at the start of the war, first to St Leonards, and then in the early summer of 1940 to Pembrokeshire. there we were split up among a number of villages and I was lucky enough to go with my class teacher. She taught a group of about 25-30 all ages from 5 to 14. In early 1943 (I was 9) I was told I would be doing a "pratice" scholarship,and she must have said something to the other kids because I can still hear one (horrid) boy saying "Cor- are you gonna be a nurse" and the teacher's reply "No, Peggy is going to be a doctor" Please note I was not consulted.
Nothing more happened that year until my parents moved out of London
And I went back to live with them. As they intended to go back to London at the end of the war they fought tooth and nail for me to take the LCC scholarship, and I ended up at CH

Pretty sure my parents only heard of it because they saw an advert in a newpaper asking for children to take the exam etc.

A rather clever chap, two years my senior, at my primary school paved the way by getting a scholarship to CH and his mother, who was an occasional teacher at my school suggested that I might also try to get in the same way - and somehow I did.

I'm almost ashamed to say - Rock School

There was a girl from my home town (though not my school) about 3 years ahead of me.

Funnily enough she lives just round the corner from me here too.

My brother took the exam but didn't get in. He said he failed deliberately as he was an avid soccer player and didn't want to play rugby.

After my father died, we moved to Exmouth and the local curate came round to " welcome us to the parrish" - got short shrift at first from Mother, but finally won her round and took the family on as a personal project...( he already had 6 children, so 3 more was just an addition to the cricket team...)

He had a son at Horsham, and suggested that Mother try to send us to CH as well , as there was no way she was going to able to afford other public schools. The rest, as they say, is history...

Well I knew about CH because Dad was an old Blue and he was teaching at CH by the time I took the entrance exam!

Mid A 15 wrote:However subsequently, from the same primary school, Karen Dewdney (?spelling) went to Hertford in about 1968 and Andrew Sizer arrived at Horsham during the late sixties or early seventies. He was probably there at the same time as Mr Ruck and others of that age group. There may well have been others but I am not aware of them.

Thought we needed a new thread here

Yes, Andy Sizer was on my year. He and Rory F-T did Russian A-level (only two of them in the class).

My story, then......

My mother decided that, right from the outset, that I would benefit from a private education.

As she was a nurse, and my father worked in a power station, this was a bit tricky money-wise (to say the least).

Still, they persevered, and I ended up at a local prep school in Somerset. Unfortunately, my father died when I was 9. Luckily, as I was quite a bright little brat, the prep school provided a bursary to allow me to complete my time there.

One of the teachers at this prep school was a widow herself, and sent her son to C.H. (his name was Richard Kroll - he would have been there in the mid-late '60s, I think).

As I was doing well academically, she got the headmaster to put my name forward, I took the exams and that was that.

My grandfather and his cousin went there. when i was about ten, my parents decided that it was about time they did something to make sure i didnt go to my sh!t-hole of a local upper school.

my grandfather, cedric bower, had already been underground (not in the exciting political movement way, in the less exciting parkinson's disease way) for a year or two by this time and so we talked to his cousin, brian bower, a governor. he couldn't present me as he already had someone else at the school, but was enthusiastic that i went for a competitive place at the entrance exams.

the rest, as they say, is history.

Mid A 15 wrote:My parents were told of the school by the headmistress of my primary school and I sat the LCC exam. (The LCC became the GLC in 1965 so my year was the last of the LCC I believe).

We must have taken the same exam, as I was also one of the last LCC boys. (I remember CMES doing the interviews).
As already mentioned my foster brother had gone to CH prep school aged 9 or 10 (governor's place I think). When I was 11 my father saw the advert and asked me if I was interested. Having visited the prep school and gone to prep school films (Robin Hood) it seemed a good idea.
I offered my boys the chance when they came to the age of 11, they both said no.

AKAP wrote: I offered my boys the chance when they came to the age of 11, they both said no.

Nobody ever asked me that sort of question!

To be honest, at the age of 11 I would not have been in much of a position to make an informed choice.........

Richard Ruck wrote:

Mid A 15 wrote:However subsequently, from the same primary school, Karen Dewdney (?spelling) went to Hertford in about 1968 and Andrew Sizer arrived at Horsham during the late sixties or early seventies. He was probably there at the same time as Mr Ruck and others of that age group. There may well have been others but I am not aware of them.

Thought we needed a new thread here

Yes, Andy Sizer was on my year. He and Rory F-T did Russian A-level (only two of them in the class).

and he had a younger brother called Jeremy (Jez) too

Miss Gladys Browne, Headmistress at Wybourne, New Eltham.
The previous year, Peter Thompson had got in to CH. My year, 1959, during school journey in Sandown, the Isle of Wight, 4 of us, Ian Watts, Michael Froggatt, Ian Johnson and I went up to Gt Tower Street for the LCC entrance exams. I still have my school journey book.
Ian Watts failed and I went to Barnes B with Cherniasky, Johnson to Lamb B with R Rae, and Froggatt to Peele B with Matthews.
Rumour has it that Froggatt (co founder of the Jabberwocky Jazz Band, one of the first at CH) died some years ago, any news gratefully received, Ian Johnson is a medical professor at Nottingham University and Watts is an engineer.
I have no idea where Gladys got the idea that we should go to CH, although my mother claims that her father tried to send my uncle there but failed. Two unrelated incidents I believe.
Gladys is dead and my mother has had a stroke making communication difficult, so the chances of finding out the true reason are small.
Yet another of life's mysteries.
Question of taking your chances as they come by.