Dormitory names...

Douglas Kell has been in touch recently about the fire escape ladder, and there was a mention of all the dormitory names!

So while I'm still awake, here are the names I remember...

Please, anyone can correct me if I've gone wrong!

Caxton - over  the Middle Common Room overlooking the front lawn and at the West end of the building

Cranmer - over  the Middle Common Room overlooking the front lawn

Sydney - in the main house, next to Cranmer and up a few steps and overlooking the front lawn

Nelson - next to Sydney and overlooking the front lawn - the first dorm to have double bunks...

Alfred - next to Nelson in the main house

Lister - the North-West side of the house, in the main house overlooking the Garden Room

Grace - at the back, next to Lister and looking North

Elgar - the small two-bed dorm in the passage next to the sick bay near Sister's room

Wren - across the bridge and over the stables

Faraday - a bit further on and over the stables wing where the woodwork shop was! Matron, (Miss Reynolds back then) had her room around there too!

I don't think there were any more, but there may have been in later years!

Cricket boxes...

I can just remember that a good friend at HHS, Roger Bray, got hit in a very painful place during a batting session. Mr Trendle said that the time that we should be issued with boxes and wondered why we weren't!

Can anyone recall if such items were on the clothes list?

Fire escape ladder...

I was reading a Nevil Shute novel from the 1940s the other day, and he was describing an internal fire escape ladder in one of the scenes in the book!

The recall began to grow, and I'm sure there was a red (?) retractable fire escape ladder in one of the passages at HHS!

Can anyone enlighten me please, as I've tried searching for such images and have found none!

I think it was situated somewhere along the passage between Sister's room and the high passage across to Wren, near 'The Blackwater' Lead Pedestal wc (remember that) at the end, but I could well be wrong!

Next HHS OB lunch...

Just to let everyone know, a few of us are meeting at 'The Queens Hotel', Sedlescombe on Wednesday 12th April around lunchtime!

I forgot that is going to be Easter week, but that might help some of us!

Does anyone remember the days when we spent Easter at school, as it came so early in the year? GBess would 'pool' everyone's sweets, (this was before a sort of tuck shop arrangement changed all that), and we all got one of the plastic mugs full of whatever was left in everyone's 'private' jars!

Sometimes you won; other times all you got was a few 'cheap sweets', (as Mr Miller used to call them)!

Old pic of the original Eastbourne HHS!

Some time ago, Jay Simson sent me this photo of the school which has to be from the original Beaulieu days, as I don't recognise the scene at all! Jay's Father is E.C.L.Simson, fourth from the right, back row! The photographer from Eastbourne is signal as well!

My apologies for being so tardy, Jay, I 'lost' the pic until a 'flashback' occurred just now, and I remembered it all! Senior moments sometimes work in reverse!

I guess that as this is from 1917, these fathers and grandfathers will have long departed now, but at least we have a proven record of the old place! I think GB would have been very pleased!

Ed Halsted (1960-1963)...

Edward Halsted has been in touch, and we've had several chats online recently!

A click on the link below shows an impressive career in theatre, film and TV, and there are too many recognisable titles to write here! The link at the bottom can be cut 'n pasted for everything!

Ed says that he's unable to get to Sedlescombe in a couple of weeks time, but of course the invitation is still open to anyone coming along to the Queens!

Hi Mike 

I've just come upon your old boy blog so thought I'd say hello. We must have been at the school at the same time - I was there from 1960 to 1963 I think. It was good to scroll through the posts and photos; a few faces and rather more names were familiar. 

I came back for a reunion a year or two after leaving and, then, stopped off in 1975(?) when I was working locally to find the place deserted. The doors were open so I walked round the house and grounds and met a few ghosts. 

I haven't met any contemporaries since apart from a chap called Davis who came up to say hello after a show I was in. (Have been an actor after university and drama school since 1974.) I won't wait another 58 years to google the school. 

Thanks for putting up the site - Hope you are keeping well while the plague is with us. 

Yours Edward Halsted 

edward.halsted@gmail.com 

Spotlight Link:http://www.spotlight.com/interactive/cv/1933-9053-8506

(I got back to him, then...)

Hello again - Many thanks for your speedy reply. 

Touched by your memories of me and my immortality via the army station! In fact, I think I had rather a low profile due to the combination of Brodribb's enthusiasm for sports and my hopelessness at all of them. 

Even my job as scorer for the cricket 1st 11 was unglorious - Seem to remember never getting the numbers to add up! I did go on to Bryanston (how did you work that out?) but no one from Hydneye came too. Had a very good time there. Then law and Sociology at Exeter meaning to become a barrister. Sadly, half way through the first law lecture I realised my mistake!

Don't have any photos to add to the site's collection. Do feel free to put my letter up if that would be suitable.

Best wishes. I live in London. Perhaps we can meet some time....

Ed

(Ed, I've left off your phone numbers, but can put them up if you want - Mike)!

ps, the link will have to be a cut and paste - the swap from the email somehow wouldn't let me copy it as a proper link! Apols too, for the formatting, it's been a bit of a b****r to transpose, hence the rather attractive type...

Next reunion...

Another lunch in Sedlescombe, just North of Hastings, is planned for Wednesday 26th January, 2022.

So far we have a party of four, all HHS men from the late fifties/early sixties, but of course, anyone is welcome and I will bring the magazine collection from whatever year HHS inmates can remember!