Five OBs and an ex-master (J A Springett, 38-47) featured in the New Year Honours list.

The school reassembled to find twenty-two trees had been blown down. Illness was a curse throughout the term. On Thursdays it always snowed.

The Band played for the Queen in Horsham and later combined with the Band of the Honourable Artillery Company for a Big School concert.

Only twenty-four football matches were played, but only four were lost. The Hockey Club was formed; its First XI did well, as did Wanderers RFC (CH’s ‘club’ side) apart from one heavy defeat by the Old Blues (with Bill Richards (Pe B 61-70, Governor) ‘in devastating form’). John Cullen (Pe A) made the England U19 squad for four internationals.

Steeplechase winners: Nick Elliott (Senior); Bill MacNair Smith (Intermediate); Robert Giles (Junior - ‘the outstanding athlete at almost every event in the Junior Houses at the moment’).

In Handel’s Acis and Galatea ‘the part of the giant Polyphemus was sung with eminent authority by Mr Jeffers’ (Staff 72- ). The Gabrieli Quartet gave two concerts and percussionist James Blades a masterclass.

The school play was controversial: an expanded version of Joe Orton’s The Erpingham Camp, with an energetic central performance by Rob Fabbri (Mid B), now a film and television director. Other drama: An Ideal Husband, Thieves’ Carnival, End-Game and Was He Anyone?

Senior Grecian Jeremy James and Peter Lockyer (both Pe A) were the first winners of the Dadson Prize, which has since introduced many CH pupils to Belgium. Dominic Fry (La B) won a Morehead Scholarship to the University of North Carolina.

At the end of term Christ’s Hospital: The Last Years in London by C M E ‘George’ Seaman (Th A, Ba B 1920-27, Headmaster 1955-70) was published, cricket coach Bob Clarke and wife Hilda (Tuck Shop manager) retired and the U15 rugby players won the Crawley Schools Sevens Trophy.

Capt G Tillotson RAOC (Ma B 59-66) was mentioned in despatches for service in Northern Ireland. Dennis Smith (Ma A 37-43) led protests to the Defence Secretary and US Ambassador against the proposed re-opening of Greenham Common airfield.

Peter Woon (Col A 42-49) took charge of BBC Radio news and current affairs. Bryan Magee (Ba A 41-48) interviewed philosophers on BBC2’s Men of Ideas. W D Harper (13’s, Col B 00-04), once the only black boy at CH and later active in the US Civil Rights movement, celebrated his ninetieth birthday.

Deaths included T P Cowell (Col A 08-11, Governor & Almoner), Brigadier Jack Gentry (Pe A 11-16, Governor) of the Port of London Authority and Tees Conservancy, Myn Haslehurst (School Secretary 44-67), Marjorie Watts (Barnes Matron 40-59) and Fred Fielder, last of three brothers who had served CH (as his widow and two sons continued to do).

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