CHARNEY HALL Welcome!


(Updated May 2019)
(Updated June 2020) - the App has been updated - at last I have been able to resize the text!!

Well someone had to do it....the task has fallen on little old dyslexic me! 


First my apologies for the slack setup of the blog - I am a newbie but at least the initial traumas of inputting information that I first experienced have now virtually disappeared due to the updating and debugging of the software. 😷

Having come across David Clapp’s post ‘The First 50 Years of Charney Hall School’ ** and Louis’s research into Cumbrian War Memorials *** which prompted many posts from former pupils, I thought that it would be useful to create a working blog where people could leave their thoughts/photos about Charney. Maybe one day Charney Hall will become a curiosity and someone will produce a comprehensive record! Either way I think that Charney heritage is worth saving...they don’t make schools like that anymore!

I’ve been advised that a blog is the best way to do this, so I’m following those with more experience than me. They say that a web site is ‘closed’ and perhaps requires more work in the form of hosting etc. and probably more money!


Whether your experiences were good or bad at Charney, whether they set you free and you made a success of your life or turned you into an introverted recluse and now blame that school, it doesn’t matter. 


If you have any photographs please scan and post them*. I think that, regrettably now, I threw all my year group photos away and I have very few of individuals. However what I have and come across in the future, I will put on the site.


With best wishes to you all,

      Keith Smith 1953-58

*  I haven’t quite worked out how visitors can post photos on a blog yet. Maybe I will have to act as facilitator? Please email me with your photos/memories (good or bad!) or alternatively feel free to comment! I’m getting old (79 now - doesn’t time fly!) so hurry up!

Comments

Clive Holden said…
Never blogged before if that is a verb.1960 until 1965 were five years to prepare us for what?well,not life that’s for sure.My transition to Bromsgrove School was never the less bleak and brutal.My grandson walked to the top of Skiddaw on the fuel of my school stories.Trauma,real hurt emotional heart break at being driven to Charney Hall and dropped,to be told by a crying,sobbing eight year old that the next time I would see my parents,home,collie,life with my friends would be months away!Cruel? you bet your life,and for what?so from the cobbled streets of Blackburn,with a good school near by and great pals,to a prep.school so far removed from real life,it left me ironically totally unprepared after Public school for life.The good news is ......despite all the shit of private education I made a fabulous life for myself and my family(ten amazing grandchildren),so I’m sorry,but although the beauty of the area escaped me at the time,the overriding feelings are of ,betrayal,rejection, and deep sadness.Having brought up three beautiful children of my own,I can’t begin to understand the callous decision of my Mum and Dad,p.s. god how I loved playing football on that lopsided pitch.Matron,was a life saver,kind,strict,ever present,and empathic, .......enough,no,that wasn’t cathartic,just a rant,.not what you were looking for ....my brother (two years older)was Holden major,unbelievable,
11 January 2021 at 21:13
Keith Smith said…
‘Not what you were looking for....’

Well yes Clive it was! Because it was all part of life at private school and if we were to admit it we were all affected to some greater or lesser extent. For my part, my experience at Felsted Public School in Essex was infinitely more traumatic (today, through the passage of time and better understanding, things appear to have changed very much for the better - but who knows) - I was ridiculed on a regular basis purely because I came from ‘up North’. I too blamed my parents for putting me in this insidious situation but in hindsight I have to accept that they were doing what they thought was their best for me at the time...

As somebody recently said ‘Lockdown is a breeze if you have had the misfortune of experiencing life at public school...’

PS. My first draft was extensive but I am neither psychologist nor psychiatrist and have
come to the conclusion that what you refer to is too complex for me to unravel - perhaps another blog! Nevertheless I thank you on behalf of all who may come across this blog for raising one of the more pernicious issues.

More please!
21 February 2021 at 09:54
Chris Bailey said…
I've been trawling through this fascinating blog and just found the piece by Clive Holden which mirrors my own experience at Prep School and later at Repton. You are not alone Clive I assure you. My time at Charney was as game master during 1962/63 and I have clear recall of a lovely lad called Holden who took on the role of goal keeper brilliantly in the outstanding football team when the original incumbent, Eccleston I think, broke his arm early in the season. Would that Holden be you or your elder brother I wonder ? Coming back to your comments about life as a pupil, sufficient to say I vowed never to send away any child of my own, and have stuck to that, having three of my own and five grand children, all schooled in a way that has kept each one in the warm heart of our family. All good wishes to you should you read this. Chris Bailey
14 April 2023 at 11:43
Chris Bailey said…
On reflection, the goalie with the broken arm may have been Eddlestone, not Eccleston. No offence intended or taken, I hope ! Chris Bailey
14 April 2023 at 12:21
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