Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Distinguished living Old Blues include: Sir Colin Davis, Professor Alan Ryan, Ruth Deech, and Lord Simon. Distinguished deceased Old Blues include: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Barnes Wallis and Edmund Blunden.

From the school website.

Of the distiguished living Old Blues, the three men have their titles. What about the woman aka Professor the Baroness Deech of Cumnor DBE?

I must admit that Barnes Wallis's Knighthood has also been omitted.

Grr! Indeed Mary. I must admit I had to Google Professor Alan Ryan as I hadn't heard of him. Ruth Deech seems to be one of the great and the good as far as the BBC is concerned, she appears on Radio 4 quite a lot. In such a context she should be at least Baroness Deech. Are they in age order? It is certainly not alphabetical listing.

Her full title IS as bit of a mouthful but I wanted to make the point.

Like General Sir Richard Dannatt.

englishangel wrote:Her full title IS as bit of a mouthful but I wanted to make the point.

Like General Sir Richard Dannatt.

....... And quite right too !!!

Ask the current pupils to list famous Old Blues, and Taio Cruz (No.1 in the Top 40 for 3 weeks) will probably top the list!

All credit to the music department for letting him do his own thing.

How about a contemporary list of CH celebrities?

I think way back (2005/6) there is a thread with "Famous people you were at school with". Also no-one seems to remember Taio Cruz, Frankmusik yes, but not TC.

I just asked my daughter (current pupil) and she said Barnes Wallis ... closely followed by Taio Cruz

Well, Barnes Wallis is no longer living (though he was when I was at school). If you include those who are no longer extant there are Coleridge, Lamb, Middleton, Constant Lambert, Bede.... etc. etc. etc.

And I'd add Charlie Hazelwood to the list of living Old Blues.. but maybe he was there on the original list and I missed it? Quite agree about the need to recognise significant OGs as well as Old 'Boys'. There's Elizabeth Llewellyn Smith (Oxford Principal),still living; Ida Busbridge (Mathematician) (now departed), and, and, and.....

In the past, we (girls) were always the 'poor relations', not least in terms of numbers. I am so glad that in the present day and age the gender representation has been equalled out and that therefore these days there are as many opportunities for girls as there are for boys.

Did anyone go to FD Dinner this year and hear Ruth Deech, I wonder? I've been asking around but no-one seems to have gone!

Does anyone remember the visit to Hertford of the Jabberwock Jazzmen? I was enormously impressed - thought they were super - although somewhat wasted on a seated audience of girls only.

We weren't allowed to speak to the Jazzmen and they were quickly whisked away.

I wonder if any of the band went on to be famous as professional musicians?

Angela Woodford wrote:Does anyone remember the visit to Hertford of the Jabberwock Jazzmen? ...I wonder if any of the band went on to be famous as professional musicians?

According to Joe Froggatt (PeB 59-66), writing in The Blue in 1968, the Jabberwock Jazzmen consisted of Noel Abel (trombone), William Watson (trumpet), Paul Knapman (clarinet), Giles Drew (drums), John Stanley (piano) and himself (brass bass/euphonium).

Don't know if any of them attained fame, exactly, but Noel Abel, who died last year, played in the orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Giles Drew has been seen on TV occasionally, not as a musician but as the long-serving headteacher of St Edward's CofE Comprehensive School, Romford.

Thank you Rex!

Noel Abel on trombone! How nice to know he went on to greater things. Royal Opera House... London Philharmonic! That really is stupendous.

He died last year? That's terrible (horrible understatement).

The Jazzmen really brightened a dreary Hertford day for me.

There's Jason Flemyng, who left Mid A in the mid-80's and is quite an accomplished actor with many films and TV under his belt (e.g Lock Stock & 2 Smoking Barrells, Snatch, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Primeval etc etc)

Rex wrote:

Angela Woodford wrote:Does anyone remember the visit to Hertford of the Jabberwock Jazzmen? ...I wonder if any of the band went on to be famous as professional musicians?

According to Joe Froggatt (PeB 59-66), writing in The Blue in 1968, the Jabberwock Jazzmen consisted of Noel Abel (trombone), William Watson (trumpet), Paul Knapman (clarinet), Giles Drew (drums), John Stanley (piano) and himself (brass bass/euphonium).

Don't know if any of them attained fame, exactly, but Noel Abel, who died last year, played in the orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Giles Drew has been seen on TV occasionally, not as a musician but as the long-serving headteacher of St Edward's CofE Comprehensive School, Romford.

I knew Michael D Froggatt (known as Joe) pretty well as we were in the same class at junior school (Wyborne), took the CH exam together with Ian Johnson (now Professor of Gynaecology etc at Nottingham University). A few years ago we arranged a visit back to Wyborne for my year, and tried to track down Michael, via Birmingham University where I last saw him. They had been informed that he had died a few years earlier, but didn't have details and I was unable to get any further.
Noel sat next to me in the band, playing tenor trombone with an ease that was a joy to listen to. He never seemed to practise nor get phased by anything. The lead trombone was Paul Barnes, and both he and Noel made up 2/3rds of the NYO trombone section. It is curious to think that Paul started on the Bass Trombone and graduated to the tenor, and Noel went the other way.
Willie Watson was in all my classes up to the deps, and it is likely that the idea of the Jabberwocks came from the 3 of them, since they were all in Peele (Wille, Peele A and Michael and Noel, Peele B)
I think Paul Knapman was a year younger and I can't remember the others.
Talking of "famous trombonists, (which we weren't), we have Richard Ruck (UCHF fame), Tim Benjamin, Young Musician of the Year, composer and founder member of Radius and Colin Sheen, on IMDB and conductor of orchestras for film music. It was Colin who told me of Noel's health problems.
So it seems that some stayed in the music business.

I vaguely remember Michael from band days.

He did Heacham, didn't he, John ?

englishangel wrote:Distinguished living Old Blues include: Sir Colin Davis, Professor Alan Ryan, Ruth Deech, and Lord Simon. Distinguished deceased Old Blues include: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Barnes Wallis and Edmund Blunden.

From the school website.

Of the distiguished living Old Blues, the three men have their titles. What about the woman aka Professor the Baroness Deech of Cumnor DBE?

I must admit that Barnes Wallis's Knighthood has also been omitted.

Back on topic - just wondered if you'd pointed that out to the school, Mary? And if so, what was the response?