A small chapel for private worship and prayer was created in the Prep Block.

CH musicians performed at eight external venues including Chichester and Arundel Cathedrals and Arundel Castle. A Christ’s Hospital Singers record appeared. The Music School gained a pipe organ. Patrick Castledine (Ma A) won the St Nicholas Award of the RSCM.

Princess Ida and Peer Gynt were staged. The St Louis Jazz Band gave two farewell concerts. Mrs Mary Whitehouse visited, as did the RSC, taking their final curtain call in Housey uniform (Ian McKellen included). New Almoner John Gale wined and dined the Theatre crew in Covent Garden.

D W ‘Butch’ White arrived as cricket professional. The First XI won 4, lost 2, drew 6, with Nick Konig as the leading batsman, Steve Lebutt and Scott Engering an outstanding pair of opening bowlers and Ian Wood an exemplary Captain - all from Lamb B.

Rear-Admiral Tom Bradbury (La A 34-39) inspected the CCF. Lt-Col Morton Peto retired after seventeen years in command.

More than eighty friends of the Hon David Roberts (ex-Head of History) gathered for a memorial service; a painting by Keith Vaughan (Pe A 21-29) was presented to CH in his memory. Among DSR’s former pupils attending were the Treasurer, a bishop, an MP, an ambassador, ‘several writers and a clutch of professors’; his ex-pupils were said to have published 150 books.

On Old Blues’ Day a memorial stone to OB and ex-Headmaster George Seaman was unveiled by his widow Peggy.

A ticking parcel at the School Office alarmed police, but proved to contain Mexican jumping beans.

Birthday Honours: one CMG, one CBE and three OBEs (including Treasurer Angus Ross). Belated news: Melvyn R Churchill (La A 51-58) had won the 1976 Corday-Morgan Medal and Prize.

The Endowment Appeal reached £470,000, while the OBRFC appealed for £5,000 for renovations at Fairlop. The OBs’ Cricket Club feared extinction from lack of support.

Sheila Hinton (Murphy, 3’s 51-59) welcomed forty OBs (plus guests) to her Whittlesford home - perhaps ‘the first time Hertford has taken the lead in a reunion of Old Blues.’

John Arnold (Ba A 43-52) became Dean of Rochester, David Evans (La A 50-57) Bishop of Peru. The Complete Poems of Keith Douglas (La A, Mid B 31-38) were published.

Deaths: Donald Allen (Pe A 17-26), classicist and wartime code-breaker; Joe Lambert (Col B 14-19, Almoner) of the CH Masonic Charities’ Association; F R Richards (Ma A, La B 10-17, Horsham Staff 24-28), Rector of the Glasgow Academy; E V Smith (Ba A, Th B 16-23, Horsham Staff 27-33); and Albert Marsh, gardener, judo instructor, and life-enhancing member of the CH community.

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